Séjour bistre is a large-scale installation by Belgian artist Stéphane Gilot, presented at L’Œil de Poisson in Quebec City in 2011, with a performance by Sarah Wendt. The installation consisted of a corridor and a slope leading either to a ceiling-less oval-shaped room or to a platform from which the room could be observed from above. Painted in a dull brown reminiscent of Soviet-era interiors, the structure evoked a hypothetical shelter for an apocalyptic future. Wendt responded to the work by intervening directly in its architecture: what appeared to be a round speaker embedded in the wall was in fact the bell of a horn-like instrument she had built into the structure, connected to a small blowhole by a flexible tube. During the performance, Wendt inhabited the installation slowly and attentively. She was clad in a dark green dress made of thick fabric which made one think of women in the early 20th century art such as Varvara Stepanova, and she was wearing what looked like a brooch (in fact a French horn mouthpiece). She was resting, or hiding, in the hole, a den if you like, before and between the performances. Then she emerged from the hole and simply moved through the enclosed space, very very slowly. Apart from its controlled slowness, none of the movements she made were out of ordinary; she walked, crouched, leaned against the wall or rested her forehead on the wall, a part of her body always touching the wall. She made no eye contact with the audience, some of the close enough to be able to touch her, and appeared to be lost in her thoughts. At intervals she reached the blowhole, inserted her mouthpiece, and improvised short musical passages or spoke into the instrument before returning to her den. This routine was repeated several times over the course of the evening, unfolding without clear beginning or end, and gradually shifting the installation into a site of both observation and inhabitation.