Continuous Session references the plan for the UN Security Council chamber, originally designed by Norwegian architect Arnstein Arneberg. The chamber was referred to as “the emergency room,” because it needed to be available at any time when there might be a threat to peace.

The open circular structure has since become iconic for meeting spaces amongst the powerful. Circular designed the space out of slotted plywood, to be rapidly deployable wherever a space for speech might be necessary. Throughout the run of the exhibition, student and community groups are invited to make use of the space to meet and discuss their work.

Continuous Session is part of the larger exhibition, How To Do Things With Words, which presents the work of fifteen artists and collectives who explore the relationship between language and power, media, and action through gallery works, talks and performances. The exhibition takes its name from the title of a groundbreaking treatise by British philosopher J.L. Austin, who eloquently presented the concept of speech acts. He disavowed the notion of language as something passive that simply outlines reality, but rather described it as a set of practices that can be used to affect and create realities. Austin's fundamental premise is that speaking itself contains the power of doing.

The project installed at the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries at Parsons The New School for Design in New York.