Sited Body, Public Visions

"Sited Body, Public Visions" is a remarkably personal account of the evolution of artist Ernesto Pujol's social practice as a public performer and social choreographer. His intimate text combines early childhood reminiscences, monastic experiences, memories of partners, letters exchanged with artist friends, and insider documentation of past performance processes. The book also includes a condensed sample of the site-specific training manuals that Pujol creates for every regional group of citizen performers recruited on site for his international projects. Emphasis is placed on the meditative role of silence, stillness, and walking throughout Pujol's rigorous performance practice. The book reveals an artist who is willing to become vulnerable as his transparent methodology, seeking to manifest generosity, humility, and trust as the foundations of an accessible form of performance art beyond museum walls, seeking to enact psychic portraits of people and places, as unspectacular but aesthetically formal, transformative, healing experiences. This is a must-read for students of performance art, public art, and social practice.