The Task

Twenty-eight strangers shuffle into a nondescript room where they sit down for day three of a radical social experiment orchestrated by taboo-breaking artist LEIGH LEDARE. Veering between brutal honesty, righteous indignation, manipulative caginess, and suspicion of the inscrutable “task” at hand, the participants—spread across race, age, gender, and class lines—relentlessly analyze each and every interaction that passes between them until even an act as small as changing one’s seat becomes charged with explosive tension. Provocative, at times uncomfortable, and always riveting, THE TASK is an unsettling mirror reflection of our societal fault lines.

Screening will be followed by a live video chat with Leigh Ledare conducted by Christopher Stiegler (Institute For American Art, Maine College of Art].