I have been thinking a lot about “pre intentions” and what it would be like to let go of them when performing. Years ago I say a guy with a shirt that said: “No expectations, no disapointments.” It made me laugh when I first say it but as I kept thinking about it it started to make me think differently about understanding the beauty of life as it is not as we may want it to be.
I like how your work exists within environments – for the most part- that are uncontrolled and constantly in flux. The idea of creating space and taking ownership of that space is a lot more challenging when outside the protective space of a gallery. Not that the gallery is a completely dead space and therefore obsolete/ unnesecary- as it lets the artist address its history and can engage the viewer(s), participant(s) and artist(s) in ways that being in public can’t, but saying that I don’t think it holds the same ‘power’ it used to. Which makes me think of the breaking down of “authority” within the arts in general. To me there are no alternative spaces anymore, anyway. I think it’s more important to me to think in terms of context and maching the work to a space rather than the other way around. We all exist somewhere at some time and so does the manifistations of our actions/ ideas. For the most part, how the viewer reads a work depends on the individual and what they bring to it. The thing that I think is most difficult about performing outside of the gallery is that there are very few free spaces where a person can express themselves without being moved along. It’s criminal that cities make it nearly impossible to enjoy a space in the way we need to- from the no loitering signs to the blatant middle bars placed on benches to the concrete seats with steel plates afixed to their edges- to detere skateboaders from sliding across them. When I lived in Toronto- (by York University) (Jane and Finch area) I was always struck by the bleekness of all the concrete towers. So drab and hollow and cold. Everything was grey and univiting. On my way to the store I would always see this group of men sitting cross-legged on a small patch of grass in front of one of those towers with their tiny colman burner trying to have a picnic. It struck me that cities basically asign places where citizens go and can’t go. Even nature is like this now. We can’t roam freely, anymore. There is so much control our our human spaces. This is something that I liked about Amy’s last piece- she seemed to take ownership of her space in that park. She marked the ground but also marked our need to take back what is all of ours.
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When Emilio and his mother performed their collaboration I was struck by how much the audience wanted to give. This is the power of making work with honest intentions. Emilios’ mother exuded a power and strength that I have been privileged to witness through many women I have known. Their piece made me think about the bond between a mother and child but also the others bonds that are more fleeting like the bond that sometimes happens between the audience and performer(s). I think that Emilio has adeptly shown our most basic universal connection- to nurture and be nurtured. The strength is in his work seems to stem from his softness- his openness to the people in the room. He didn’t just include us in the piece he held out his hand and walked us into his home. I actually think the most revelling part of the performance was when he was speaking in Spanish to his mother and not translating- the intimacy in doing something public and private at the same time. A small moment. But it’s in these small moments where this crossover between doing and living exists- between memories and dreams; between anticipation and acceptance; between love and reverence. Anyway, a performance is beyond an experience or a memory- it’s a portal into something deeper…
performance art in public space can be tricky. you never really know how the work will be received - security might be called or the police alerted because any unknown or unusual activity can be deemed ”suspicious.”
often the safest bet for the artist is to act “as if” the authority resides in them, “as if” this activity is completely normal and they are just “doing their job.” and this is exactly what amy malbeuf did. she arrived on the scene, she performed her task, she left. perfectly normal. except, amy malbeuf was dressed in a silver leotard that completely covered her body. her body…and her head. no eyes, no nose, no mouth, no skin, no hair was visible. all we see is a body encased in silver. the task performed involved walking in a circle and spreading some colourful substance with a “golfgreen” fertilizer spreader.
as an unsuspecting audience you could be more charmed than alarmed. this was, after all, a daylight activity performed in a park. the silver being did not seem to pose a threat, and there was no obvious danger either to the silver being or to yourself.
if you had the time and the inclination you would probably sit on the concrete ledge next to the grass and watch. and this is precisely what various “spectators” did. i imagine they would have found pleasure in the confident stride of the being dressed in silver, and perhaps they found pleasure in the sparkly reflective quality of the clothing. the coloured substance coming from the fertilizer spreader was also pleasing to the eye. there was comfort found in the repetition of the action. the sensation was not, i suspect, very different than the pleasure one receives from sitting in a park and watching grass being mown. watching a body engaging fully in a task is one of the small pleasures of life, and here this pleasure is augmented by the beauty of the spectacle unfolding before you.
first a pale blue substance is scattered via a fertilizer spreader in the configuration of a circle. after this circle is complete the silver being pours a darker blue material into the fertilizer spreader. this darker blue is spread on top of the pale blue. i think of matisse as this colour is spread. henri matisse and his paper cutouts, where often a clear blue predominated. however the silver being does not stop here. on top of the blue ground a white substance is spread, and on top of the white substance a golden-brown large seed is spread. “wheat” i hear someone say. the circle is complete, the work done. i watch as the silver being flings a brown sack over the shoulder and, pushing the greengolfer feeder in front, walks down the sidewalk and out of view. i watch the figure walk away until they slip out of sight. i wonder, what was that about?
as a spectator i could leave the performance here and have it rest as a moment in my life where i saw something strange and wonderful. i could also share what i had seen with friends.
lets just say one of my friends who i told the story to was curious and wanted to know more. i could take this friend back to the park and show them the circle as this trace of the action remains. its possible the colours in the circle are scuffed because people have shuffled over the pigment or perhaps some of the seeds are gone, plucked by birds. my friend, curious as to what the carrier of the pigment is, might bend down and take some of the blue stuff into their hands, smell it, taste it. if so, my friend would discover the material was salt.
hmmm… salt. that is interesting. coloured salt on brick. i wonder what that does? my friend (obviously smarter and more resourceful than i am) tells me when salt is given to cows (as cows must have salt in order to survive) the grass around the salt dies. in fact, my friend continues, salt is poisonous and if eaten in too great a quantity causes death. it’s called salt poisoning.
curious. why would someone colour salt and put it in a park and then put seeds on top of this poisonous substance? my friend, (yes the curious one) decides to google. being incredibly talented my friend comes to this page: http://www.visualeyez.org/festival-2011/artists/amy-malbeuf/ where the project is described and the silver being named.
with this additional information the reading of the action in the park shifts. no longer solely a wondrous magical spectacle the action now becomes loaded with a deeper political and social meaning. these are not ordinary circles, they are markers of a sacred space. the salt, which is the carrier of coloured pigment is meant to be destructive, to reflect a destruction felt by one people through the actions of another people. in this case by indigenous peoples and their colonizers.
as i reflect on this deeper significance i start to imagine how a colonial invasion of amy’s silver being might play out. i start to imagine hundreds, no millions of beings covered in silver cloth descending on edmonton and creating sacred circles. sacred circles that, in effect, are poisonous to the earth. personally, i would have to say that’s a pretty good analogy for the effects of colonialism. an encounter that starts off being a pleasurable sensation of seeing a strange and wondrous being then turns into an occupation that overruns the land and ends up poisoning us all. the drive of colonialism was the accumulation of wealth and goods – i.e. capitalism, and as capitalism knows no bounds the destructive impulse behind colonialism is still alive and well
i think here of amy malbeuf’s circles and the empty space inside the circle. perhaps this inner sanctum is protected; perhaps this inner sanctum is the sacred space of hope.
today we meet inside. the weather has turned windy and cold. again there is a circle, but no table between. we discuss work that is not gallery specific. emilio rojas’ relational ritual and aimée henny brown’s revival walk. the fact that both these works break with the standards of both gallery viewing and theatre creates challenges and unique opportunities. also, with emilio’s work being relational every person present was the “keeper” of their own unique experience. there was no right or wrong in the telling of how the work affected each person. there was also an incredible sense of generosity that came forward today where support was offered in a way any artist (or person for that matter) loves to hear…”we will be there for you.” this being with each other and for each other, is in a sense what these two works are grappling with. the question is as old as time and will i suspect, always be relevant.
the woman playing the guitar with the open guitar case in front of her, back pack and shopping bags stashed behind her, asks, “is it theatre?” julianna and i, who have straggled behind as we watch and respond to the street life and the questions of various edmontonians who want some information as to what this strange procession of people with flags and flares and whistles and lanterns and call-response phrases are doing, stop to answer her.
the woman continues, “is it a rehearsal?” we respond by saying it is a kind of street theatre led by one person. the woman wants to know if this is fiction or real. we communally decide this theatre is a fiction, the artist’s fiction who is leading the procession. “her story?” the woman asks. yes her story we say nodding our heads.
so yes, it is a kind of fiction, this parade down jasper street in edmonton. it is as if we are a group of scouts on an urban survival training mission with a very organized and enthusiastic leader who tells “facts” of the colonization of this piece of land from the proud perspective of the colonizer. a colonizer who does not tell the “facts” of colonization from the perspective of the faces and bodies of the displaced aboriginal population who populate the area we move through.
the colonizers “facts” are delivered with an evangelical fervour all the while making sure the congregation are all accounted for and shepherded together like new converts to a religion that requires communal ties. aimée henny brown delivers her sermon standing on a small stool with a music stand in front of her displaying a score of words. wearing a bright orange suit and holding a flare in her hand she preaches to the converted. and a good preacher she is. her congregation responds to her with enthusiasm spouting the appropriate phrases to the preacher’s calls and clearly enjoying her sermon.
there is something decidedly surreal in this procession of converts brandishing lanterns casting candle light and waving high tech reflective flags. at one of the locations where aimée stops to stand on her stool and deliver her speech there is an outdoor screen streaming the news. a woman with an enthusiasm not unlike aimée brown is telling her audience the news of the day. i am struck by how both women compete for the attention of their respective audiences, although aimée brown might not have been aware that on the screen behind her an image of a woman preaching her own sermon was being projected.
i enjoyed this walk, this walk along jasper street. i noticed people and buildings and an active street life in edmonton i had not witnessed before. for although i was not an active convert in the congregation of aimée’s followers, i did let my gaze wander and take in sights i had not previously noticed. it is quite an amazing street with a diverse and shifting clientele. for colonial historians i am sure the “facts” of aimée’s sermon were of interest, “facts” as to what building was built when and who populated the street back in the day. interesting fictions of a brutal and greed centred population who wanted, above all, to take what they could.
we meet outside on the patio. today there are two people from edmonton who join us (like). we talk about the performances of turner prize*, danny gaudreault, and michael dudeck. the artists speak of the relation between artifice and reality, the relation to objects and the relation to audience. i am reminded of how words are used to define, to judge, to hierarchize things. artifice, often associated with the female is probably given less value than reality for example. although i have to wonder what real is. a “toy” gun is still real, isn’t it? i mean, i can touch the gun, take it into my hands, and the gun occupies a physical location in the world. is a feeling of sadness real? how can i quantify this, hold it in my hands. and what of humour? how can i even describe how this sensation is produced? (btw no one else brought up “scooby doo” in relation to the turner prize*’s performance last night. i don’t know, i thought it was a pretty straight forward connection…but in fact, most of the artists seemed to have common references to films viewed i had never even heard of.) yeah, so real and artifice. interesting dichotomy. especially when the artists are dealing with dreams and mythologies. are dreams real? are myths real? and who decides? if i say something is not real does that mean it is discredited? so are these artists “making real” things that are “unreal?” according value to the underside of socially acceptable values?
this is lance mclean. one of the volunteer photographers latitude has documenting the performances. of course, volunteers have other skills than what they volunteer for and lance is an alumni of visualeyez as well as an active audience member. today he braved the morning meeting, and shared some very pertinent thoughts with us all. kinda cool i think.
we all know place creates borders, boundaries. we know this through common sense, but here we will also give credit to the philosopher henri lefebvre (la production de l’espace, 1974) who spent a long time thinking and writing about just how this all works. knowing the way space performs us (because we are performance artists who work with the creation of place, space) we decided to head out for our morning meeting to privilege, well, …food. there was some wistful looks exchanged when eggs were mentioned. and so the gang all trooped out to the highlighter diner. like most diners food was the main reason for this diner’s existence, and so, the place was constructed to privilege the serving and eating and getting people in and getting people out function. meaning leisurely group conversations would be out of the question. noise level for one is a factor while eating (eating is a noisy activity, people clink dishes, babies scream, and sheesh, other diners talk too.) so we enjoyed food, and as these circumstances dictate, we conversed with the three or four people closest to us. it was lovely! and i have to say the borscht soup was delicious.
