i. 

The strangers weren’t strangers for very long. They met outside the exhibition. They introduced themselves either strangely or slowly, but definitely warmly. The strangers, in truth, were not here for the exhibition. Some even admitted to this fact. In fact, the strangers confessed to their own exhibitions.

      I’ve come here to be discovered. 

                This bracelet is actually a fork. 

                        This watch is not working but–

                                    I don’t go to galleries, I don’t go in much, no. 

                                              I hope to come out much cleverer.

                                                        I’m happy to be here.

ii. 

It started with a walk. 

Before the exhibition, before the strangers, the artist started by walking.  She started at the top of Boundary Gardens, intrigued by the road ahead and how it might choose to share itself. 

On the first walk, the road unfolded like this: 

Laundry, fried onions, mountains of leather. 

Salt beef, mustard and bright white icing. 

The doughy sweetness of bagels. Or beigels. 

          Definitely beigels.

The next walk smelled different. Smelled more. 

As in, there was more to smell and more people

to do the smelling. Their noses picked up the stories 

beneath. The understoreys: Flowers from the market 

from the day before last. The past lives of Brick Lane;

pet-sellers and woodworkers sharing the street. Sawdust 

and chickens and cats and dogs.

          Can I come in and smell your shop?

                    Please, yes. See my fish. My fish is this big. 

                    Big enough to feed a family for a week. 

                    You don’t believe? Come come, look in my freezer! 

And though the artist knew she would never finish 

collecting the stories of strangers and friends, 

she kept coming back, insisting upon it. 

Walking and feasting and smelling Brick Lane.

iii. 

The strangers, who’d become friends before entering the exhibition, entered the exhibition. 

We’ve been let loose on the exhibition! they cried, running and leaping and inhaling the walls. 

Indeed, the friends were let loose on the exhibition, and through them, the artist met her work again and again for the first and fortieth and five-hundredth time. 

          It looks like a brick that’s come loose from a house. 

          It looks like a chip off a mountain, rectangular by accident. 

          It’s a rough sort of loaf. Spicy like cinnamon. Foody, definitely. 

                    Is it made of white rice? 

                    …and coriander seeds. 

                    It’s not hollow, see, it sounds solid. 

                    I think bricks in general can be violent…optimistic… futuristic. 

And listening to their voices sometime in the future, the writer thought well really, you could be describing my mother. 

iv. 

Some of the friends agreed the word ‘brick’ was a misdirection. 

          It took us down a route we didn’t want to go down. 

          It’s brick-like, yes, but it would dissolve if left outside 

          alone. You wouldn’t build a house with these things,

          but I suppose the house would smell nice…for a time. 

The artist and the friends kept talking. 

                    And what if

                    I mean, I think 

                    we should use a different word,

                    not ‘exhibition’, 

                    something lighter, more fun– 

                              Yes! Yes! Like pumpernickel or rye bread

                              like I’m looking for a knife to slice it.

The group then turned their attention to the table in the corner. 

This is the bagel table the artist said. 

The bagel table was made of 232 beigels. 

Actually, 229 the artist corrected. I had to eat of course! 

v. 

The exhibition spoke back. 

          Touch everything. Please, I’m asking you to touch me. 

The bricks or loaves or rectangular accidents were active, alive and very much on purpose. Born of the godly and the godless, the exhibition had desires. Wanting to be touched, wanting the friends to sit, to eat, to stay a while. 

The friends did as they were asked. They bit and chewed and swallowed the exhibition. Till their eyelids felt heavy, till they were satisfied. 

vi. 

The facilitator, who had welcomed the strangers, 

chuckled to himself on hearing 

the first signs of friendship and fullness. 

The sound artist was silent as a knife. 

The writer, vowing never to meet the exhibition themselves,

spent hours with the voices of the artist and the friends

and when they were ready, sometime in the future, 

started writing about them all.