PROJ

What does it mean to truly love?
Is love something we practice?
A way to live? A way to know?

We weren’t looking for answers.
We came to stay with the questions.
To sit with them. To move with them.

ILLP – Act I began as a simple experiment.
Could love be practiced—not as a theory or idea, not as something we have and exchange– as something we commit, seriously and tenderly, in real life?
Together?

Invitation

In May 2022, I sent out an “open call”.
It was just a form. Quiet.
I asked:
Are you available?
What’s one question you hold about love?
Would you be willing to offer one small thing—an image, a video, a few words?

Most who responded chose to stay connected.
They came from different corners.

That first wave of responses—those offerings—became the soft foundation for everything that followed.

The Practice

From June 2, 2022 to February 2, 2023, we gathered online.
We tried our best to show up every week.
Always in small groups. Always showing up from wherever we were.

We brought words. Stories. Textures. Silences.
There was no strict format.

Each time, we began with a word. Sometimes we chose it together.
Sometimes, someone just offered one up, and we followed it.
Care. Risk. Presence. Trust. Simplicity. Anguish.
Some words returned again and again, like they still had more to give.

We didn’t stop at words.
They turned into colors, feelings, fragments of memory.
Cerulean. Fog. Pink yogurt. Payne’s gray. Burning citrus.

People brought poems, dreams, stories from their lives.
A passage from bell hooks might land next to something from Foucault,
or a grandmother’s voice, or a Buddhist teaching, or a line of speculative fiction.

But mostly—we commit, we made our best to listen and learn together. That was the real practice.
Being there. Being with.

Click on the image to see it larger.

In-Person Activation

On December 3, 2022, we met in person.
A single day, in Brooklyn.

It was held as an artwork, but felt more like a ritual.
We came as we were—barefoot, soft clothes, no makeup.
We walked, ate, sat in silence.
We chose our “love words” together.

Lunch was simple, shared. We ate on the floor.
It was more challenging having our bodies present.

Synthesis

By our 30th and final session, we had gathered more than 75 words,
18 colors, and a whole web of living, unanswered questions.

No big closing. No wrap-up. Just an end.

If something stayed with me, maybe it’s this:

Love isn’t something we own.
It’s something we practice.
It’s not unconditional. It’s a condition to exist.

With love and deep thanks to Mark Engel and Tamera Bedford—
for being steady, thoughtful, and fully there throughout Act I.

After the mapping of Act I, the International Lab for Love Practices (ILLP) opens into Act II. This next phase grows directly from what we built together in the previous phase—words, gestures, and meanings that slowly emerged over thirty sessions.

In this next phase, we return to focus on love not as a feeling or state of being but as something we do.
As presence. As care. As commitment to ourselves and to one another.
We’re guided by the questions bell hooks offered in All About Love and by the lived group experiences of practicing love.

We’ll be working with the following words, as proposed by hooks, as openings:

• Care
• Affection
• Recognition
• Respect
• Commitment
• Trust
• Honesty
• Open Communication

These are the coordinates.
They will guide how we show up, how we listen, how we stay connected.

In Act II, handwriting becomes central.
A way to leave singular traces.
Writing here is a way of staying close to meaning, to each other, and to showing up as unique and important as we are.

This will be a place for becoming-with.
A shared field of love as ethics.

The form to sign up to join Act II is coming soon.
If you feel called, you’ll know.