On a recreated old workbench with 3 shelves sit 9 vintage telephones, their receivers laying open on the work table surface. The viewer/ listener may pick up any of these receivers and listen into conversations that the artist, Janet, had with her 92 year old mother, who lives in Ontario, over the last several years. The work makes apparent how important telephones have been in connecting families over the past century.

Janet Cardiff:  “As I listen to these conversations I am thinking about ideas of whether so many of my decisions and movements throughout my life have been influenced by the genetics and actions of the generations before me. I am also thinking about my mother’s eventual death and how audio can in some way hold on to the people we love.”