There are always things left unsaid. The perfect ending to a conversation with a stranger. A clever comeback in a debate with a colleague at work. A farewell bid to a loved one. Missed opportunities to get in the last word. What do you wish you had said? Now is the time to say it.
“The Last Word”, a project by the public art collaborative Illegal Art, provides a private moment to recapture what was never uttered. Hundreds of tightly rolled pieces of paper, dyed red on one end and left untouched on the other are placed white-side out within the honeycomb chambers of a cardboard wall. Participants remove one of the pieces of paper, write down their “last word”, and then replace the paper with the red side exposed. The public may write their own unfinished business or read how other people’s conversations might have ended.
The Last Word was installed at four different locations throughout the fall of 2009 in New York City. Those locations were Spring Gallery in Brooklyn, New York; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York; GMHC in Manhattan and at the Museum at Eldridge Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan through the end of 2009.
