SOME OF MY PERFORMANCE pieces start before they begin.

    This is one of them. The start is not documented in the video.

    This work started before it began, about an hour's span between them.

    I distributed strips of paper to the gallery guests. On one side was printed, “MON REVE DE SUDBURY / MY DREAM OF SUDBURY.”

    The other side was blank.

    With the colored markers that I had also distributed along with the paper, I asked them to draw on the strips their dream of Sudbury.

    It could be a picture, text, anything.

    This they were to do while waiting for the event to begin.

    The other important thing, providing a crucial context for the piece, that, however, does not appear in the video is the nickel smelter smokestack.

    This, one of two that dominate the Sudbury skyline and are among the tallest in the world. They have also dominated her dreamscape. Sudbury sits on a huge meteorite impact zone providing a plentiful supply of minerals, nickel chief among them.

    But as these minerals, like all minerals, eventually run out; Mined out.

    As with all mining towns, the dreams of Sudbury afforded by the mine has had to give way to other dreams. Different dreams. Nightmares, even.

    Facing the smokestack, with alternative dreams sprouting out of a makeshift stack on my head, I stand, arms open like the Greek statue, Oblation – the official mascot of the University of the Philippines, vulnerable to the future, open to the possibilities of knowledge, experience, and, yes, dreaming.

    But not before experiencing the difficulties of a penitent, struggling on one's knees, on the way there.