This work is a video of the artist's first performance after graduation, while she was working for a consulting firm. Wearing the power suit of a dynamic young executive, Carey Young stands on a stool among the crowd at Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner. Famed for freedom of expression, this London site is traditionally the home of mad opinions, political and often extremist points of view. In the internet age, haranguing crowds seems archaic. But Carey Young takes to the soapbox to give a training session on public speaking. Teaching her audience to do what she is doing is ironic. These work methods, designed for the office, take on strange resonances when declaimed to the man on the street. The performance seems unreal, so disconnected is its protagonist from her surroundings; there is clearly an abyss between business culture and the reality of the streets. But the credibility of this presentation lapses into burlesque when one notices in the background of the frame the negative of Carey Young's character. Behind her stands a man in white robes, white-haired, gesticulating grandiosely as he speaks. The juxtaposition of the two orators in the picture creates a comic effect worthy of Chaplin. The seriousness of the talk is wiped out, but, as the title says, 'everything you've heard is wrong'.

Patricia Maincent
Translated by Phoebe Green