We are prone to complain about our lives. Health, material comforts, relationships, whether we will ever live up to the potential we imagine we have. The list of apparent problems is endless. The practice of gratitude is often suggested as a way to combat this and remind ourselves of the abundance and privilege we possess.

While recognizing gratitude may help adjust our perspective, it’s only half the ledger. Most of us look back and have plenty of things we would do differently. This installation captures both the credit and debit of our memories: a poetic audit of human sentiment. This familiar social interaction, which might typically be expressed in casual conversations, is here committed to the humble sales slip. What was designed to detail everyday transactions now registers our most consequential reflections.

In a process reminiscent of mindfulness practices, contributors are given the option of ascending the installation to a place of isolation and focus. For up to 1 hour, the intent is to write as many personal and specific instances of gratitude or regret as comes to mind. The audience is both no one but also anyone observing the cascading ribbons of personal script. There is also the option to print thoughts remotely via a website entry form. What begins as a single entry by an individual develops over the course of a month into a collective ledger of human testimony.

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Special Thanks:
Kirsten Ritschel
Kristina Lewis
Julia Gottlieb
Sam Conkling
Luke Tate
Patrick Perkins of
stayintouch.studio
Sema Sanchez