Dani Dodge
2015
Installation/performance at LA Pride festival in West Hollywood, CA
20x20-foot room
Summary: Dani Dodge’s “CONFESS” allowed participants to share their worst sins with a stranger. The result was not sacramental grace, but an anonymous typed note that detailed each transgression on a gold piece of paper, which Dodge posted for all to see. Confessors were tasked with twisted penance. Then, the sinners were absolved, at least in the eyes of art. Over the two days of the performance, the walls went from black to gold with more than 300 confessions. People waited in line to relieve themselves of their sins. One confessor wrote to Dodge after the event saying: “I felt so comforted by our conversation and your words of affirmation that I pulled over to shed a few tears on the way home.”
Materials: wood (to make confessional), black curtains, stations and velvet ropes, kneeler, typewriter, gold chalk that coated the ground where people stood in line. After confessing, people tracked gold footprints throughout the festival.