[ peters ]

The Museum of National Dialogue is a meditation on how we communicate as a nation. Contemporary public discourse lacks civility and is increasingly polarized. Complex issues are presented in simplistic terms offering little encouragement for reasoned, deliberate exchange. An image of open discussion has replaced its unpredictable reality. Monologue has replaced dialogue. We do not listen and are not heard.

Robert Peters created a temporary museum which asked us to reflect on the condition of public discourse. Perhaps the circumstances required for the inclusive dialogue essential to democratic participation do not exist. Perhaps they never existed. Perhaps that inclusive dialogue has never occurred.

The Museum of National Dialogue was a gallery installation at Real Art Ways with satellite components throughout Hartford (City Hall. The Hartford Civic Center. The Connecticut State Museum, - all nine Hartford Public Libraries and other sites). Located at each of those satellites was a podium with a "magic slate" and questions about the national dialogue; each week the slates, with their embedded responses, were collected and incorporated into the more extensive meditation on communication and the national dialogue at Real Art Ways.

The podium with its attached slate and question was the central public image of The Museum of National Dialogue. The podium embodied the permission and authority to speak. The act of writing on the slate's surface made speech and thought momentarily public; slight disruptions of that surface partially or totally erased it, making the slate's public voice as fleeting and fragile as all communication. The slate's memory, The wax matrix below the writing surface, captured the individual writer's speech, mingling it with the thoughts of others. The collective memory of the slate, like historical consciousness, was blurry and selective: current voices were heard most loudly.