The Format

The Nametable is a participatory performance in which a committee of naming specialists, drawn from disparate professional fields, helps members of the public find new names for whatever they bring forward: an object, an identity, a project, a business, a child, a place, a problem. The committee gathers a midwife, a drag performer, a poet, a biologist and a brand consultant around the same question. Each professional logic responds to it differently. The artistic value lies precisely in the fact that the art context is what makes this convening possible: an expert gathering that wouldn't happen in any other professional or social setting.

Each session is private. The applicant brings what they want to name and what is at stake in the naming, and the committee responds. The session lands somewhere: a new name, a shortlist, a refusal to name, a redirection. It concludes with a signed document, also called The Nametable, that records what the applicant brought and what they are leaving with, witnessed by the committee's signatures. The name does double duty, referring both to the gathering and to the document the gathering produces. A new name does not have to be reached. Irresolution is a valid outcome.

The applicant takes one copy of the document. Another joins a growing archive that is exhibited in the host institution for a period after the performance window closes. The visual language draws on civic infrastructure rather than gallery convention: the room is configured as a registry office and the committee wears gowns, which mark conferral rather than judgement.