Waiting - A Project in Conversation

Book excerpt: Waiting is an inescapable part of life in modern societies. We all wait, albeit differently and for different reasons. Waiting is a particular experience of time, shaped by class, race, and gender. In modern societies, time is associated with success and money. It can be "counted, saved, spent, lost, wasted or invested". Hence waiting symbolizes waste, emptiness, and uselessness. What does it mean to wait for a long period of time? How do people narrate their waiting? The book is a combination of text and images, by scholars, artists, architects, and curators whose works deal with waiting in various situations and geographies.