(And Other Archival Spaces)

ORIGINAL MANIFESTO, 2000

Institute of N is a homestead for those with nowhere else to go. All rooms are to be found in recesses of the exterior walls, as thresholds. To go home is to be unable to cross the threshold, but to rest happily at its edges.Founded in the late sixties, Institute of N has thrived where others have failed. Where others attempted a facade of hope, N knew that there was none to be found and so rooted its ambition in failure and despair. There has, since its inception, never been a dull day, never a shortage of poets, philosophers and wanderers to fill its many thresholds, its orifices and apertures. All residents, once departed, are destined to return, if only to recount the usual yet delightful tales of life and death elsewhere. In memory of Ralph (1950-1999) who was never slow to warn me late at night, on the edge of oblivion, in a threshold on the peripheries of N, ‘Don’t start from the good old things, Beck, but the bad new ones.