ABSTRACT
Artist Sheryl Oring comes from an interdisciplinary and trans-media background, one that includes working for years as journalist. Currently she works with social practice, sculpture, artists’ books, and other forms, and serves as a university art professor. Since 2004 Oring has traveled around the United States and abroad with her portable office and typewriter. For her social practice project I Wish to Say, she holds typing events, during which she invites the public to dictate a postcard to the US president. She types their statements and concerns verbatim. During the recent 2016 US election season, she opened up her invitation so that participants could write to any of the presidential candidates. By using carbon paper, Oring makes two copies of the postcard; she mails the original to the addressee, such as to the White House or to candidates’ campaign headquarters, while she archives and exhibits the copy. At times she operates as the sole typist in her office, dressed in the patriotic colors of red, white, and blue as a 1960s secretary, there to offer assistance to postcard authors. At other times she oversees a pool of similarly styled typists.
