Dawn Kasper

Narrator: In 2009, Dawn Kasper lost her job and could no longer afford to have a studio. She began the Nomadic Studio Practice Experiment—treating temporary situations as though they were her studio. Since February 8 of this year, her studio has been in the Whitney Museum. With a few exceptions, she’ll be in this room–or elsewhere in the building–through all of the Museum’s open hours.

Dawn Kasper: The Nomadic Studio Practice in this environment is a studio. Is my studio. In this context within which to realize performance, and within which to realize unresolved projects. It will constantly be changing.

My friends were sort of joking—you’re going to be in a diorama! You know like, “look honey, it’s an artist!”

It’s like everything I own is in the Museum right now!

I’m inviting people to come and interact with me. People can come in. I’m interested in how I will establish boundaries with that in mind, in that environment. Will people understand that they can come and draw with me, or do collage, or even if they want to bring their computer?

Nine times out of ten I’ll probably be people watching in the Museum and learning from my environment and adapting. A lot of it’s about adapting, I think, and the exposure of that psychology. I mean it could totally fail miserably, I mean, I could have some sort of nervous breakdown, but that’s–I mean, in a way it’s part of that process.