Sonder illustrates the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as our own. In our awareness of even a single other person we begin to grasp the magnitude of the 7.6 billion coexisting realities all as specific and important as one another.
Over the past four years, Altieri has gathered fragments of overheard conversations and hand-stamped them on articles of clothing matching those of the speaker. Displaying these garments on a series of clotheslines illustrates nakedness and openness, encouraging viewers to embrace vulnerability.
Viewing these articles collectively challenges our capacity for empathy, curiosity, and awareness of others. Sonder seeks to help us grasp the beautiful complexities of humanity by allowing a momentary escape from our own lens. In exchange for our perspective, we are offered a truer understanding of our identity as a dot among a sea of dots. It recognizes that any hope of a richer perspective of humanity begins with acute awareness of others.
I love this idea as it mirrors an on-going project of my own. For the past thirty years, I too have kept a running journal of snippets of overheard public conversations, just like Altieri. I'll share some highlights at the end of this post, but first, let's take a look at a 2018 installation of Sonder mounted at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, Michigan.
Altieri's Sonder project is ongoing and its most recent installation was at the Saugatuk Center for the Arts in Michigan which closed just this month, September 2020. Here is a wonderful video made for the installation that features an interview with Altieri.
For more info, visit Altieri's site:
https://www.meganconstancealtieri.com/
And purchase a 392-page book chronicling the project:
https://www.meganconstancealtieri.com/product-page/sonder-the-art-of-empathy-through-eavesdropping
And as promised, here is my selected list of fascinating, odd, funny, or moving phrases and sentences I have overheard from conversations in public. I have heard these walking behind or passing someone on the street, or from a booth behind me in a restaurant...
“Yeah, it’s true... they all have that hair that sticks up in the back...”
“Joe always says he’d shoot the tires but no, I’d aim right at the driver and shoot his f***ing head off.”
“...and that’s somethin’ you’re s’posed to be proud of?”
“That boy can sing.”
“…and he goes, ‘You must have a real low opinion of me’…”
“…he’s coming later but for now it’s nailed shut.”
“It goes loop, loop then like this, and you’re all…”
“Well, ya hafta identify the issues…”
“He calls this kid over and says, ‘Go up to Uncle Isadore’…”
“Was my father thrown completely out of the car in the accident?”
“She was standing right next to the phone so there was no excuse.”
“Will you help me find a waffle iron?”
“He’s a dock worker in San Francisco but in his spare time he’s a philosopher and he writes these books.”
“He said, ‘I’ve got something for your nerves…’”
“I wasn’t flirting consciously…”
“The things that people think they can self-help themselves into…”
“My husband’s was approved, signed and stamped.”
“I HAVE THINGS TO DO! I’M A MAN!!!”
“All the Ken dolls were Dr. Kildare.”
“It makes me mad and I gotta get outta there before I have a melt down.”
“You’re an old drunk and you don’t know shit.”
“You know this. Your husband is a rabbit.”
“The pathologist is a really nice guy.”
“I put on this skirt and I went out and I took it off and I, like, swung it around…”
“That woman says it when she’s dying.”
“Imagine what you would wear if you were safe.”
“The universe is no big deal.”
“Remember how it used to be shiny?”
”Did John seem more relaxed to you?”
“Just a white dress, no jacket, no nothing.”
“…standing up in a hammock…”
“I’ll show you my nipple!”
“Gosh, it’s been fifteen years since I started an I.V.!”
“Wake up, eat, f**k…”
“I have two who are really good with math, and one who is…‘creative.’ But that’s a good thing!”
“Didn’t you go to jail?”
“…but the funniest thing in the world is me eating dinner with a girl and me farting…”
“I don’t hate you, I’m just saying that I don’t NOT like you.”
“The last champagne I had made me sick to my stomach.”
“I feel like a murderer, like there are severed heads everywhere…”
“Me, I spend every waking minute worrying about American Express.”
“That was the day I called you from the driveway when my mom was in that knife fight.”
“When did you go to Vegas and is that where your friend had the heart attack?”
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