The Institute for Contemporary Art

This gallery has been on my list all along but it took me awhile to get there. I had been close, unknowingly of course. Something could be just around the corner but I might not find right away. So I made a plan for the day and this was a part of it. When I arrived there was a cashier and so I asked if there was an entrance fee (there often isn't but sometimes there is). Yes, she said, it's £2.50, but there aren't any paintings, drawings, prints or sculptures to see, there is just a performance piece by Tino Sehgal. That's fine, I said, when does it start? You can go in any time. It's on-going. So I paid my £2.50 and she told me to wait beside her desk.
I was greeted by a young girl, about 10 years old. She says hello, and starts walking toward a set of closed doors a few feet away. I follow. She opens the doors and then says, Can I ask you a question? I say yes. She says, what do you think progress means? I say I think it means moving forward. Moving forward, hmmmm she says. This whole conversation is taking place while I walk with her through an empty gallery space. There is another girl in her mid-teens at the other side of the space. My young friend says to the older girl, She thinks progress means moving forward. The young girl stays behind as I continue walking with the older girl. The older girl asks me what I do. I tell her I am a graduate student in Fine Arts at the University of Calgary, Canada and that I am on exchange at the Royal College of Art. She asks me what kind of artwork I make. I tell her I do some photography, printmaking, drawing. She asks me if I think art has progressed since the invention of photography? I tell her I think it has, it has just moved in a different direction than it was moving in before. We are joined by a young man probably in his mid-to-late twenties. He listens to what we are talking about and then he starts talking to me and I continue walking through the empty gallery spaces with him. He questions my assumption that art kept progressing and suggests that maybe what happened wasn't progress. Anything I say in response is challenged and questioned. He leads me down a narrow set of stairs that winds around and as we reach the bottom, he jumps down the last few stairs and is out of my sight by the time I reach the bottom. There is an older white-haired man waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He starts talking to me about our two sides, dualities, although he never uses that word. He talks of how when we are making a decision and are having a hard time, we often speak of being of two minds, and yet describe it as listening to either your heart or your head. He talks about our conscious and our unconscious. We are again walking through the empty gallery spaces. I spot a mirror and ask him if he minds if I take a photo of myself in the mirror. He agrees to join me. I tell him I am doing a series of self-portraits in mirrors and reflective surfaces. He asks me what my favourite one is. I say, there is no one photo that is my favourtie, but I particularly like the ones that show what is behind me and what is in front of me and with my image visible, but very transparent. I tell him that when you are visiting a city alone, you can feel quite invisible because you know no one and no one knows you. We are at a set of doors. He opens the doors and we are back at the cashier's desk.