“Send Down The Basket”
There was a time in Beirut - a time that still overflows some neighbourhoods, where the inhabitants used to stand
on their balconies (or windows), and shout for the grocer to come out from his shop. He'd stand below the building,
and they'd send him down a wicker basket with a note, asking for canned food, vegetable, sometimes pharmacy drugs. The grocer would get the requested items, put them in the basket, and the inhabitant take it back up. The next day
- or days after - when leaving the building, the person would pass by the grocer and pay him. This mostly happened
in buildings without elevators, or simply when people were too lazy to move out.
Conceptualised by Cornelia Krafft, Send Down The Basket is an hommage to this practice, custom or tradition.
In Prague, the building becomes the Lesser Town Bridge Tower; the grocer is the walker-by, and the woman, Krafft or anyone who'd want to experiment sending down a basket with a note, asking for daily needs or reverberating on a certain matter related to Beirut, to Prague, or to a current issue. After the fulfilment of the task, the basket would be send down again, with the PQLB'15 bracelets as a thank-you-for-playing-with-us gesture.
The performance is scheduled every day during the PQ, from 18 to 28 June 2015 at 2 pm.
Concept: Cornelia Krafft
Curator: Hadi E. Damien
Starting Point: The Lesser Town Bridge Tower
Date & Time: Thursday 18 to Sunday 28 June 2015 at 2 pm
Photography: Ad Achkar
Outdoor performance Send Down The Basket was part of SpaceLab, the education component of the PQ2015.