"The Museum is an institution of sight, a house of looking and seeing,
a place where we behold with our eyes. We may be stirred, moved or
touched by what we see but we rarely touch the thing seen.

I lament this distance."

-- Ann Hamilton

In this lovely digital document, artist Ann Hamilton documents her 2014-15 installation the common S E N S E at the Henry.

As part of the exhibition Ann Hamilton: the common S E N S E, we invited the public to share selections from their reading that described an exchange of touch. We received hundreds of submissions on the Tumblr site Readers Reading Readers, which was set up specifically for the exhibition. Excerpts ranged from paragraphs from novels, fragments of poetry, a few lines from the newspaper, or a response in a letter. Selected contributions were printed on individual sheets of paper and distributed throughout the Henry galleries for visitors to assemble into an individualized commonplace book and guide to the common S E N S E. A commonplace book is a tool for collecting and organizing excerpts from books and other written works that provide its reader with easy access to ideas or arguments for a variety of situations.

"Just as a book connects the near at hand to the far away," Ann Hamilton writes, "touch transverses our interior and exterior worlds."

While we can no longer accept submissions, we invite to you read and enjoy what others contributed to Readers Reading Readers and the common S E N S E.

During the exhibition, reader/scribes were an ongoing presence in the galleries, giving sociability to the often silent and solitary act of reading. Although reading at different times of day and from different pages, individual reader/scribes were connected to each other through the acts of reading and writing from a shared text. The first project book—read from October to February— was The Peregrine by J.A. Baker. The second was Mercè Rodoreda's novel Death in Spring, read from February to the close of the exhibition in April.

Reader/scribes selected a comfortable place to read out loud to the animals—represented both in images and materially present in the cultural artifacts on display. As they read, they transcribed selections of text from the project book that had personal significance. Each book and scribe log—thirty copies each—accumulated the marks of individual reader/scribes to become a physical record of the collective activity. In this Henry blog post, arts writer Elissa Favero shares her experiences as a reader/scribe and what it meant to her.

In February 2015, renowned composer and UW School of Music Professor Emeritus Stuart Dempster and his specially assembled Bull Roarchestra gave a performance inspired by Ann Hamilton: the common S E N S E. The piece responded to the atmosphere and sounds created by the Field of Bullroarers.

The Bull Roarchestra was composed of bass drums, hand bullroarers, and didgeridoos in concert. The audience experienced the sound in our lower level gallery and as it echoed through the surrounding areas. The performance was such a hit, that the Bull Roarchestra returned in late March for an encore performance, for which the artist was present.

As part of "the common S E N S E," volunteer reader/scribes have been reading out loud in the galleries while transcribing selections of text from a project book, giving sociability to the often silent and solitary act of reading. The joined processes of reading and writing address the animals, represented in images and materially present in the garments made of fur, feather, and gut on view.

In this video, University of Washington graduate student Anna Wager reads from J.A. Baker's The Peregrine, the first book Hamilton selected for the reader/scribe activity. Mercè Rodoreda's Death in Spring follows as the second project book, starting in late February.

We invite you on a virtual visit to the common S E N S E. Hear artist Ann Hamilton's thoughts on developing the exhibition and our collaboration with UW departments to create a unique experience. This video was produced for the Henry by UWTV and was featured on UW360 and KOMO TV.