“The truth is…”
Those words will be on everyone’s lips at the “Truth Booth” when it stops at MICA this June. Participants in the traveling art installation In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth) will have two minutes each to finish that sentence for themselves in the recorded collaboration, which seeks to capture Americans’ inner ruminations in a tour across all 50 states during the lead up to the 2016 presidential election.
“This project is not only a public art tour, a website and a documentary video project—the Truth Booth is also a generosity project,” says co-creator Hank Willis Thomas. “The goal is to provide Americans with a safe space to share their thoughts, ideas, dreams and truths about the upcoming election, or anything that inspires them.”
Truth Booth creators Ryan Alexiev, Jim Ricks, Will Sylvester and Hank Willis Thomas are members of the Cause Collective, a team of artists, designers and ethnographers who create art that interacts with public spaces and audiences. Their mission statement—“By exploring ideas that affect and shape society, we seek to add the “public” back into public space and art”— has been brought to expansive life through the Truth Booth, a puffy, inflatable giant of a cartoon speech bubble emblazoned with the word ‘TRUTH.’ Founded in 2011, the confessional booth has traveled to Ireland, Afghanistan, South Africa and parts of the U.S. It has collected more than 2,000 statements along the way, drawing responses that range from “the truth is Legos” to “the truth is I’m proud to be Afghan.” What’s yours?
The Truth Booth will run from noon to 6 p.m. June 21 at MICA’s Cohen Plaza, 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave and June 22 at Ynot Lot, North Avenue and Charles Street. More information about the project is at causecollective.com.
Image courtesy of Cause Collective.
