San San, a conference by Jonah Freeman
San San is a theatrical collage of the narratives and histories surrounding the The San-San Annual, a gigantic exhibition located in the Granville Convention Center of the Pacific Coast Metroplex. The event is described by the journalist Elizabeth Stone in her book In The Kaleidoscope Room: “There are over 1750 exhibitors on the 13 floors of the convention center. It is the largest of its kind in the world. I’m told that they expect a surplus of three million people to attend. This hypertrophic scale is a result of the merger of several kinds of trade fairs, contemporary art exhibitions, technology displays and performance festivals into one behemoth event. It is now truly without theme or cohesion, a fair ostensibly about everything and nothing at all.” Stone’s landmark of New Journalism is a hallucinatory tour through the multifarious objects and events. She shines an unusual light on the performative relationship between spectator and exhibitor, the rituals of identity transformation and the dynamics of seduction and power that unfold within the dense conglomeration of displays. This presentation will use the Stone text as an anchor for a broad anthropological examination of this unique cultural phenomenon. The event will be comprised of a combination of slide lecture, object display through performance and audio/video quotations. This conference, proposed by Trouble after the invitation of Kadist Art Foundation, is a form of Trouble in Act, isolated extension of its last edition which is available for free in six different art spaces and partners of the project: Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille ; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris ; La Galerie, Noisy Le Sec ; MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine ; MAMCO, Geneva ; Villa Arson, Nice.