On Walls Benjamin Bartlett

The walls of the bedroom I grew up in are a work of art, a teenage impressionists reflection of time and agency.

Posters, photographs, printouts and paintings were affixed by blobs of blu-tac, in defiance of my parents wishes that I preserve the walls. The paint tear and oil stains from the tyrannical viscous blobs were a quiet act of rebellion. A friend worked at a cinema and for $20 would save me the oversized promotional wall coverings that I would rotate on my bedroom walls, marking the ultimate expression of my agency as I hammered in the pin hooks needed to support their weight to the wall while my parents were out one afternoon.

When I moved out of home and began to disassemble the last exhibition on those walls, I was able to see in full the effect of years of curation. Peeling, hiding rips in the painted surface under new installations and the sun bleaching of paint composed a final and penultimate work of art

I was charged by my mother with the task of correcting the wall, back to the original pristine condition. I remember the horror of watching the evidence of my time in that room disappear as I sanded, gap filled and painted the walls. `

I’m reminded of Georgia Mactaggart and Fanqi Sun’s project, One Thousand Cabinets and how the U-House wall that they imagined would be demolished at the conclusion of the projects fictional occupation. As they wrote:

they hold what they must for as long as they must