Calle often blurs the boundaries between the intimate and the public, reality and fiction, art and life. Her work methodically orchestrates an unveiling of reality—her own and that of others—while allocating a controlled part of this reality to chance.

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Calle adopts multiple identities as author, performer and character. She invents or invites games and rituals to pass the time and initiate social exchange that in turn beguile and entrance her audience. Behind the artifice of the mask and the arbitrary structure of instruction, lies the messy emotional truth of loss, disappointment, or frustrated expectation. The catalyst and consequence of many of her investigations is a failure.

 

Douleur Exquise: Sophie Calle has placed her recollection of the scene of her lost love that day on the left, corresponding to the most painful memories of her conversation partner on the right. In contrast to the others' painful memories, Sophie's pain becomes less important, she begins to feel bored and the pain of her lost love heals.

 

Looking at her work and the theme of my project there seems to be some similarities in that both require communication with people while gathering material, so perhaps I can borrow her format.