from The Paradise Institute, 2001, Wood, theater seats, DVD, DVD player, digital projector, headphones, and mixed media, 120 x 449 x 201"
Museum purchase with funds provided by the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Friends of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the William A. Clark Fund, Carolyn Small Alper, and the Binn Family Foundation in loving memory of Penny Binn Binstock


Photograph courtesy Luhring Augustine, New York, and Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

The Paradise Institute by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

The Paradise Institute represents a new level of achievement for the artists. Like previous work, this one cunningly explores the relationship between reality and fiction and intersubjectivitiy: our ability to experience the world from another's point of view. However, unlike the "walks," The Paradise Institute does this within the confines of a completely controlled environment, a sculptural wooden container that encloses a miniature theater, complete with balconies, silver screen, vintage-style architectural detail, and 16 actual-size red velveteen chairs. Once inside, visitors grab headphones stored under each seat and watch a suspense thriller unfold on the screen while another narrative unfolds in the audience around them.

The Paradise institute is a beguiling and mysterious work. It explores the way we give meaning to real-time, real-world experience through a fictive cinematic event that is unlike any its audience has previously encountered.

The acquisition of this work was made possible by the FRIENDS of the Corcoran. Click here to find out about the FRIENDS of the Corcoran.