Since the late 1980s Ben Kinmont has been interested in interpersonal communication as a means of addressing the problems of contemporary society. His sculptures and actions attempt to establish a direct, personal relationship between the artist and the viewer, using the work as a mediator. If art is supposed to be an agency of intellectual and emotional challenge, then the artist concludes that the audience should also be addressed beyond the institutional frame of the gallery and the museum, and that contact should be more direct. Kinmont's practice is primarily made up of various projects which occur outside of art institutions. From these projects he makes an archive that contains everything related to the organization and development of a given project including letters, contracts, sketches, photographs, video, watercolors, and sculpture. If an archive is acquired, the purchaser signs a contract which stipulates that he or she must make the archive available to the public and add relevant future material. As such, the collector becomes an archivist as he or she helps to make transparent the project itself. Ben Kinmont was born in 1963 in Burlington, Vermont, USA. He lives and works in  San Francisco.