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Often, lines are blurred between curation and art making. In the newsense gallery, that is sometimes the case, and given the nature of this particular exhibition, it was perfectly fitting to have the collective involved as participants. Domestic Bliss was a devised as an art event meets -- a weekend retreat for couples -- meets Survivor…. Five different couples were given a space in the house/gallery and teamed together to conceive and fabricate a collaborative artwork in just three days.

Pillow Talk was the response created by newsense enterprises (Kristin and Lyz). The location of their work (as it existed in the gallery) was directly below the couple's bedroom. This was fundamentally significant, as the installation delivered an astute portrait of privacy, intimacy, and voyeurism.

The piece began with a homemade ladder that seemingly disappeared into the gallery ceiling. Upon climbing the ladder, the viewer was able to just fit their head and shoulders through a small passage where several finely embroidered pillows offered poetic snippets from pillow talk conversations ('you O.K?', 'bad Mom?', 'when she's gone', my fears', etc.). Just beyond the bunker of pillows - by climbing one more step - people were able to squeeze their head through the top opening, which placed them directly under the bed in the room above. Without contrivance, the view on the floor was kept in whatever state the bedroom naturally existed. In a gallery that is also a home, there are inherent allusions to public/private convergence. Pillow Talk took what already existed and amplified the notion by giving gallery-goers an extended peek into a deeper part of their daily existence - offering them words from private conversations and glances into personal space.