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[Ann Hamilton: "the event of a thread"]

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[Sound of static and a woman's voice coming from a radio speaker]

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[Sound of static and a man's voice coming from a radio speaker]

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My first hand is a sewing hand--is a weaving hand--

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is that connection between text and textiles.

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The title of the work is "the event of a thread"

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and that comes from Anni Albers, whose description of weaving

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is a horizontal and vertical crossing of a thread,

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which is touch and contact at intersection.

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The cloth is raising and lowering with the swings.

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Everyone's presence registers in some way in the materials of it.

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And that, in turn, makes its weaving.

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[sound of audience echoing throughout the hall]

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[Sound of static and a woman's voice coming from a radio speaker]

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[MAN] "Discordant pieces of science."

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[MAN] "On man's injustice"

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[MAN, THROUGH RADIO SPEAKER] "is another's injustice."

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[HAMILTON] At the beginning, we wondered if people would even swing.

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We're like, "I hope they don't just hang there."

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There's something that happens when you swing.

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I'm sure there's a neurological explanation for the sense of pleasure that you feel,

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and I think people are giving over to that.

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There was a family in here yesterday that was here for three hours.

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So, it's sort of become like a park.

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I think one of the things that's here is it's very intimate,

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and yet, it's kind of very large and anonymous--

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so this quality of solitude and being in a congregation or group of people.

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I think the feeling of that is actually very comforting,

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and something that we need.

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In the middle, under the cloth,

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I knew it would be a really wonderful place to stand--

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to have the turbulence and the liquidity of the cloth fall around you.

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But, I was totally unprepared for the fact that people would lay down on the floor

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and stay horizontal for a long long time.

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I decided early on that I was going to stay for the duration of the show,

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and every day is a little bit different,

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and every day there's some other kind of interaction

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that it's almost...it holds the piece back up to me.

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There was a girl who said she felt really really wild and safe at the same time.

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When I heard that...you know, it's like, "Yes! That is great."

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There's so many of those kinds of things,

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so you're trying to give or make the opportunity for that kind of experience--

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but not determine what that is--

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that in turn, there's so much that's coming back

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from what people are giving into the work.

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Being here and being present to feel that is tremendously satisfying.

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[CHILDREN: "Whoa!"]