Letters from Attica

In conditions of solitude – as for travelers or prisoners – people have often resorted to writing letters as a means of communication with their closest, revealing the very sensation of being in isolation. Sam Melville has done so from the Attica prison, where he was held on charges of sabotaging public property in protest of the Vietnam war, and where he would die during the Attica prison riots in 1971. His and others' voices in similar conditions connect the sensations of loneliness and the one of determination. In her artistic works Begüm Erciyas often uses sound and instruction to accompany the spectator in an experience that is deeply solitary and yet collective. At the occasion of Every Inside Has an Outside she imagines for the first time a project for the public space, guiding each spectator both in the space of a text and in the one of the city. Multiple voices involve the throat, chest, intention, experience, feelings and the pleasure of giving a personal form to sound waves. Each spectator is a living letter, to inscribe words in public space and generate unforeseen sentences. As a first encounter with the city, Letters from Attica is a search for means to let a voice travel from one to the many.