ABSTRACT
This article tells the back story of a performance dedicated to bearing witness to a corner of a room in a 1990s’ New Zealand kitset home. The video meeting, you in detail performs a love poem that asks for forgiveness before demolishing the wall. The video tracks an interlude where the space of tolerance related to building construction meets open-mindedness, empathy and compassion. This performance inquired how maintaining respect for others extends to material processes and interactions. Underpinned by Jane Bennett’s new materialism philosophy, the article draws from poet Francis Ponge’s muse on the muteness of objects, architect Marco Frascari’s teachings and the scholarship of archaeologist Lucy Shoe Merritt.
