Mud Exchange

Photos and materials are available at the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, California, the USA).

In 1983, Allan Kaprow proposed an interesting idea – exchanging a bucket of mud from his garden for a bucket of mud from any other place. The first exchange was made to the ground from the Zen Center in San Diego, where the artist was trained; after that, he exchanged the soil for a bucket of mud from his friends’ garden. Other people picked up this idea, changing their buckets and making videos of this action. In total, these exchanges lasted about three years and became the longest happening in history.