Love Tapes

A selection of Love Tapes — a collection of video recordings of 2,500 people from diverse backgrounds who share their personal feelings about love. Love, as described throughout the tapes, is not defined by any one singular meaning, but is instead contextualized by the variety of personal perspectives and experiences within this collection. Such interpretations of love explore lust, friendship, first love, and familial love. This selection consists of 32 edited tapes from 1978-2011. The Love Tapes project began in 1977 and is ongoing.

"An older woman talked about how she had just fallen in love and it felt exactly the same as when she was 16. A young man said he did not want to feel love because it made his life too complicated. Another woman looked into the lens of the camera and talked as if she were talking to her lover, tearfully telling him how much she loved him. Each tape was unique: most people talked about romantic love and either the joy or pain of their experience."

— Wendy Clarke, Making the "Love Tapes", Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions, Kathleen McLean and Wendy Pollock, 2007