Further images / Return to 2014
Description: Public telephone booths were reappropriated as shelters to rest and store domestic items by the large homeless population living on the streets of Paris. No longer used by city inhabitants to make phone calls, cardboard and bedding were often seen folded into these cubicles and umbrellas and pieces of fabric suspended to provide some degree of privacy for the 'transient' occupants. Clothes and food items were also variously placed inside these enclosed spaces personalising each booth and suitcases used to prevent doors from opening to create a form of makeshift security. Responding to these 'domestic' scenes witnessed throughout Paris, the Action Researcher/Performer temporarily suspended custom-made white curtains inside a series of public phone booths in the city. On these curtains were sewn the phrases- 'Good Night Paris' (Bonne nuit Paris) and 'Sweet Dreams Paris' (Fais de beaux rêves Paris). The letters were cut from second-hand white clothing, the seams of each item visible within each letter. The letters were also variously toned in different shades of white (including yellowed high-usage stains) reflecting the previous owners wear.