I Wish to Say
"I Wish to Say" grew out of Sheryl Oring's concern that not enough voices were being heard about the state-of-affairs in this country and her belief in the value of free expression that is guaranteed under our Constitution.
For this project, Oring sets up a portable public office - complete with a manual typewriter - and invites people to dictate postcards to the President. This ongoing project began in 2004 with a commission from The First Amendment Project in Oakland, CA, and has had two national tours thanks to grant support from the Creative Capital Foundation.
To date, some 4,600 postcards have been sent to the White House as part of this project. An archive of the project from 2004 through 2016 is hosted by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Library.
In 2024, Oring hit the road with a fall tour to document this historic presidential election. She was on the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. She also presented a solo show documenting 20 years of this project at the Monmouth University Center for the Arts in New Jersey.
In 2020, Oring worked with the Stamps Gallery and the Democracy & Debate Theme Semester at the University of Michigan to present a monthlong series of virtual performances over zoom. A team of student typists from the University of Michigan and Wayne State University typed messages to the next President from students and university communities in Michigan. And in Brooklyn, Oring presented both live and virtual performances at the Brooklyn Public Library.
Students from Univeristy of Michigan and Wayne State University practice typing over zoom.
The above messages were addressed to the next President during performances across the country in 2020. Each of these messages were individually sent to the White house directly during the first 100 days of the Biden presidency.
On April 27, 2016, a team of students from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and PEN writers invited the public to dictate postcards to the Presidential candidates during the PEN World Voices Festival. This performance was made possible by grants from Franklin Furnace and Creative Capital. The messages dictated during this daylong performance were on display at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn as part of the "Of the people" exhibit curated by Erin Donnelly and at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC, as part of the "Dispatches" exhibition curated by Cora Fisher.
“Now that politics and performance art are one and the same, Sheryl Oring’s facilitation of public engagement through her Franklin Furnace Fund performance art work, ‘I Wish to Say,’ is a fitting and needed action. I expect many folks will wish to say something to our Presidential candidates!”
Oring's book, "Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project," was released by the University of Chicago Press and Intellect Books in Fall 2016.
