Participation and spectatorship in Tino Sehgal’s These Associations

These Associations (2012) by British-German artist Tino Sehgal was commissioned as the thirteenth, and final, artwork of the Unilever Series. It took place in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall between July and October 2012. As one of the people involved in the project and as a practice-based researcher, I am in a curious critical position: both deeply involved and immersed in the work, yet also striving to retain a degree of critical distance. From a methodological position I have the double privilege of ‘having been there’, not only as an observer, a spectator, a visitor, a viewer or an on-looker of the work but also as a participant in the work. In this article I take full advantage of the inside/outside perspective, proposing that it is possible to speak critically from within the art object.