My mother started collecting hotel stationery many years ago, and does every time she is in a hotel, in a new country. She is an art historian and curator, and had been thinking about a way to exhibit her hotel stationery, either writing fictional letters through them or hanging them on a wall alone. When DFBRL8R (a performance art gallery in Chicago) held an open call for performance art pieces as part of “What Remains” we decided to contribute. In February 2020, we performed in the gallery space, writing letters to each other imagining ourselves in hotels around the world. We wrote to each other in vague and precise ways; as mother and daughters, as artists, and fictional pen pals.
These letters were written in the DFBRL8R gallery during the month of February, two days of writing in the gallery space culminating with a third day reading the letters out loud to the audience.
Mána Taylor 