Venting: Ducts, Sound

A visitor walking into the room hears low murmurs coming from the ductwork and can enhance the sound by opening the vent to hear a life story. Venting is an installation at the Mansfield Training School for Intellectually Disabled in eastern Connecticut. These projects work with time, testimonials and place within and surrounding this abandoned institution. Beyond the stories of people whose testimonials we witness or perhaps more accurately, overhear, is the idea that much of what goes on within institutions is kept within their walls and is only heard in private, in a one-on-one encounter, or perhaps, never. Through the air conditioning/heating system of the building Venting exhales the memories of three formerly institutionalized people.