An act of remembering, “Citation” recalled performances by female artists from the 1960s onward, but avoided reperformance, exploring citations as recognizable yet ephemeral structures of meaning.

Transforming a proscenium theater into a site of memory, Truax filled the stage with rocking chairs and hung empty picture frames throughout the space. For 34 consecutive hours, she performed and repeated the following score: Rock/Remember/Unwrap/Write/Erase/Wrap/Rock.

To elaborate: Truax began by walking slowly through the space rocking chairs she came in contact with. Following her internal rhythm, she would engage in an off-balance duet with one chair that included twisting, lifting, falling and moving into memory. As remembering concluded, severing the final point of contact between her body and the chair, Truax revealed a bundle containing white gauze, a pen and a square of sandpaper and began writing on a section of her body about the present moment and the process of remembering. Audience members approached, trying to read the inscribed pen marks. With the sandpaper, Truax then sanded the writing from or further into herself. Ink disappeared as skin flakes and beads of blood rose to the surface of her body. Wrapping her wound in gauze and sitting with the audience, Truax then wrote the name of the female artist, title of a performance and date on the back of the sandpaper before standing to wrap a frame with the gauze, sandpaper and pen. Beginning again, Truax walked, rocked chairs and waited for a new sense or emotion to stir, catch and suspend.

Audience members entered at all hours and could come and go as they pleased. Many sat in rocking chairs, approached the performer, watched, engaged and came back.

Truax did not leave the space for the duration of the performance. She did not have a clock or other traditional markers of time on stage. She entered without food or water. She exited fifteen minutes after the 34th hour.