MEL CHIN

(MEL CHIN – 
USA)

Mel Chin, video stills: “S.O.S.  –  Urgent Messages to the President from the Streets of the Bronx”, 2004, video featuring 84 Bronx residents offering heartfelt thoughts to the President

Mel Chin presents, with the assistance of Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Tamalyn Miller, and Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, a series of filmed interviews with people of all ages, classes, professions, ethnicities, and political opinions. The filming took place over the span of four days in the Bronx immediately before the presidential elections of 2004. The interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, Russian and Italian. Each participant was asked to send a message to the president, and their words were scrolled beneath each person’s image. In place of their voices, the artist uses a recording of the interviewees’ heart beats.