'Surrender. The word came to me through my great uncle Edward, a military man, a Christian. When my grandmother worried too much, he would simply tell her: Eleanore, surrender. My father still tells this story, and the word has never left me.'
There is no such thing as a house party, at least, not the kind one loved at twenty-five. The house party as a form: intimate, excessive, slightly out of control. A private space filled with too many people, music pushed past comfort, drinks accumulating. A kind of surrender, though not yet named. Once familiar, now distant. Friends acquired children, jobs, responsibilities; the freedom once taken for granted has quietly slipped away.
And so the party is staged again, this time inside the gallery, a reconstruction that is also a displacement. No longer the same body, no longer the same time. What remains of a party when its conditions have changed? Is this even a party at all? Is anyone actually dancing? Who are those figures? What is this strange music? And what does it ask one to surrender to?
'Surrender. To what? Over the past year the word has become something of a quiet mantra, returned to in moments of stress or anxiety. To give up. To give in. To let go. To embrace. To become one with the moment. Whatever it means, it helps. To look at oneself honestly and surrender, that is a powerful thing.'