The Public Friendship Request

          

 During a workshop in Belgium during the fall of 2013, I invited my fellow colleagues to make a “friendship application” form for me. My proposition for the workshop was that I was going to read their application answers from my balcony of my home in Brussels. Whatever they asked I would answer. I requested they ask me questions they would usually know about their friends, and create an index of what they need, want or usually know about their friends.

           As my character, Anna Sörenson- Head of Department, I made a public announcement, making a speech out of their answers and addressing them one by one. Exploring the formal codes of public speaking, the bureaucratic formality and power language I stated the intimate facts of my life.

           After my declaration of myself, I gave back their applications, filled out and stamped with my official seal. Some of them approved me right away, but for some of them I am still waiting to receive.