THE WAITING ROOM

Samantha Small

23 March - 21 April 2007

We wait because we have to wait. And while we wait, we try to pass the time.

But the way we pass the time while we are waiting is completely different from the way we pass the time when we have nothing to do. Because all the time we are waiting, we have to be ready at any moment to drop everything and get on with what whatever it was we were waiting for: get on the bus, see the doctor, take documents up to the counter.

So we can’t get involved in what we do while we wait, we can’t invest in even the tiniest future. If we read, each time we start a new page, a new paragraph, a new sentence even, we can’t be sure we’ll get to the end before the interruption comes that is, after all, the thing we have been waiting for. So we hold ourselves back, keep something in reserve. The job of waiting constantly demands a small part of our attention, and therefore, we might as well say, all of our attention. For what is attention, if not the capacity to lose oneself entirely in what one is doing? (Russell Smith, 2007) 

Image: Samantha Small, The Waiting Room, 2007.