Surprise, Surprise is an installation inspired by the iconic blue Tiffany & Co. gift box that Melania Trump presented to Michelle Obama on January 20, 2017, upon arriving at the White House for the presidential inauguration ceremony. Obama’s visible confusion at the unexpected gift and her awkward expression of gratitude, “you brought us gifts!”, became fertile ground for countless online jokes and speculations about what might be inside the blue box. Its contents were never publicly revealed, allowing the mysterious gift to become a peculiar metaphor for what was yet to come.
Referring to French sociologist and anthropologist Marcel Mauss’s 1925 essay The Gift, there is no such thing as a free gift. A gift always creates relationships and obligations, generating a duty to reciprocate and an expectation of receiving something in return.
With this in mind, Surprise, Surprise approaches the gift not only as a gesture of kindness and goodwill, but also as a social and political transaction. What does it mean to accept a gift? What do we accept along with it? And what are we to do with a gift that is not only unexpected, but possibly unwanted?
The installation is exhibited as part of “Baltā nakts 2026”.