THE MAID
Paul Wong, 2011
installation with single-channel video projection, 7:23 min., colour, stereo
hotel room furnishings, poppers, prescription drugs, magazines & newspapers, underwear, clothes, used condom, beer bottles, ash tray w/ cigarette butts

The Maid goes in and out of your private room diligently maintaining the ‘public hotel standards’.  She is the invisible housekeeper who makes the beds, scrubs the toilet, picks up the dirty towels, empties the trash all the while navigating between the strewn clothes, toiletries and other personal effects laying about.

Stories from The Maid including knotted and soiled sheets.

“I like to think of myself as a shadow. I don’t like interacting with the hotel guests. I go in and clean their rooms and I elicit stories from their lives that I like to keep alive in my own imagination. Its a really strange situation because its like having intimacy with strangers.”

For the grand opening of The Waldorf on Halloween 2010 Paul Wong created a dozen site-specific installations and performances titled The Hotel. THE MAID is the second of 3 video installations that were remounted. This series launched ROOM 103 as an ongoing project space/gallery at the Waldorf.   www.waldorfhotel.com

Video Credits:
The Maid: Lisa Snelling
Videographers: Marcus Rogers & Paul Wong
Post Production: Brian Gotro

Distributed by Paul Wong Projects