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For over 20 years, Sheryl Oring’s participatory art project 'I Wish to Say' has invited thousands of people to engage in direct, analog dialog with US presidents through typewritten postcards.
As a self-styled "Secretary to the People," Oring sets up a public office and transcribes dictated messages to the White House, preserving a carbon copy for her growing archive. Secretary to the People chronicles the evolution of this groundbreaking project as well as subsequent projects that draw on a related framework.
Blending Oring’s personal reflections, archival documentation, and new essays by artists, scholars, and collaborators, the book explores how analog tools can catalyze civic discourse in an increasingly digital world, offering a powerful meditation on democracy, dissent, and the role of art in public life.
This book provides an in-depth look at how Oring helped define Social Practice art in the United States through her ground-breaking work with I Wish to Say. The case studies provide valuable examples for programs that want to incorporate social practice projects into their galleries and curricula. Oring’s practice hit an important milestone in 2024, the year she marked the 20th anniversary of I Wish to Say.
The longevity of this one project demonstrates its profound cultural and artistic impact, making it a key resource for educators, students at both the undergrad and graduate levels, art historians, and artists alike. Its interdisciplinary reach into the topics of democracy and public participation will also make it of interest to those who work with civics, sociology, education, political science, library and museum practices, and other related disciplines.
As both visual documentation and narrative exploration, this book makes a compelling case for the importance of art as a catalyst for civic participation and social change, at a time when all of our participation in democracy is imperative.
Corey Dzenko is Associate Professor of Art History at Monmouth University, USA, where she focuses her research on contemporary art and photography in terms of the politics of identity and place. She presents and publishes her work internationally, recently curating I Wish That I Had Spoken Only of It All: Twenty Years of Sheryl Oring’s “I Wish to Say” (2024).
Since launching I Wish to Say in 2004, Sheryl Oring has had her work featured at universities, museums, and public spaces nationally and internationally, including the International Exhibition of Architecture at the Venice Biennale, Bryant Park in New York City, and the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, while she has received grants from Creative Capital, Franklin Furnace, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among others. She has served as Chair of the Department of Applied Design at Appalachian State University and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Foreword
Sheryl Oring
1. Taking Dictation, Giving Voice: Sheryl Oring and the Art of Democracy
Corey Dzenko
2. On Becoming (a) Secretary to the People
Sheryl Oring
3. Vital Spaces: Sheryl Oring’s Engaged Sociological Imagination
Johanna E. Foster
4. On Typewriters and Radical Listening in a Digital Age
Sheryl Oring
5. I Wish to Say: Building a Public Sphere Grounded in Meliorism
Jason C. Fitzgerald
6. Lessons in Civic Engagement: I Wish to Say in K-12 Schools, Higher Education, and Public Life
Case Studies of I Wish to Say in K-12 Schools
Sheryl Oring and Corey Dzenko
Case Studies of I Wish to Say in Higher Education
Sheryl Oring and Corey Dzenko
Case Studies of I Wish to Say in Public Spaces
Sheryl Oring and Suzanna Urminska
7. The Library in Flux: Living Archives as Sites of Knowledge Production
Suzanna Urminska
8. On the Quintessential Question
Sheryl Oring
9. On Performance and Being There: An Interview
Chloë Bass with Sheryl Oring
10. Notes on Democracy as a Durational Performance
Quinn Alexandria Hunter
Afterword: A Secretary of the Times: Reading I Wish to Say in a Time of Infringements on Artistic Freedom
Elizabeth Larison
Appendices
Biography
Chronology of I Wish to Say Performances (2004-)
Selected Commissions, Exhibitions, Collections, and Artist Books
Photo Essay: Selected Exhibition Installations of I Wish to Say
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Index