| Much of my work involves some form of audience interaction. This may occur in the form of soliciting information that becomes part of a new piece, or creating sites of collaborative production, or it may occur in the form of public exchange and shared storytelling. I am not interested in simply documenting these interactive experiences; rather these experiences become the medium to create new works. My work often mines the metaphors and themes from pre-existing stories, reshaping them to reflect present-day concerns and issues. | 
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MK Guth
MK Guth, Ties of Protection and Safe Keeping, 2007-2008. The Whitney Biennial, New York. Courtesy of the artist.
Much of my work involves some form of audience interaction. This may occur in the form of soliciting information that becomes part of a new piece, or creating sites of collaborative production, or it may occur in the form of public exchange and shared storytelling. I am not interested in simply documenting these interactive experiences; rather these experiences become the medium to create new works. My work often mines the metaphors and themes from pre-existing stories, reshaping them to reflect present-day concerns and issues. I formulate an imagined site based on a mythic construct inserting additional content into the myth to reconfigure it, thereby creating shifts and displacements.
Since 2006 I have been concentrating on a series of installations involving artificial hair, fabric, and viewer participation. Each of these works is created on-site, and the final work requires intentional audience participation to complete the work. With the project Our Rapunzel, the gallery became a site of production. People entering the Linfield College Gallery could directly participate in the creation of the developing and growing installation. Visitors were invited to write a “regret” or “desire on a ribbon,” which would be woven and hidden into a braid that grew with the addition of each ribbon. The visitor to the gallery could also choose to learn how to braid hair extensions and weave their own ribbon into the piece. The interactive element of this work took place over a month; on any given day, people would be working on the braid or teaching newcomers how to braid in the hair extensions. At the end of the month, the work remained in the gallery as evidence of the transformation of the gallery to worksite, and acted as a visual container for community interaction.
In December 2007 I began a work designed for the New York Park Avenue Amory Silver Room/Library as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Ties of Protection and Safe Keeping traveled to several different cities across the United States. With each stop, audience members were asked to respond to the question, “What is worth protecting?” by writing on a piece of red flannel. Their responses were added to the braid continually extending the size of the object. After the braid arrived at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, the participatory aspect of the project continued for ten days after which the competed work was left and woven through the Silver Room for the duration of the exhibition. Like Duchamp’s Mile of String, the braid wrapped the Silver Room consuming and disrupting the traditional view of the space. The installation interlaced contemporary notions of protection into their site of history.
The story of Rapunzel is the departure point for these projects. There is a duality to the image of Rapunzel’s braid; it is the representation of her time entrapped in a tower as well as the vehicle for her escape. This coupling of meaning furnishes the objects and the interaction that creates them with a shifting access point. These projects align the viewer to what Jacques Rancière describes as “a community of storytellers and translators,” changing their roles as the situation demands. These works collide one mythic metaphor into another, constructing a site where the opposition between viewing and action becomes blurred.
