Time is such a curious thing. Just yesterday I was trying to remember performances of mine from the last four years, for a new book work I’m making. Revisiting documentation and digging through memories is for me an uncanny experience. Punctuation, echoes, discrepancies, gaps. I’ve also been revisiting an old collaboration with Kathe Izzo, and dicussing some possible new collaborations – our Public Love Project was in 2006, an intense, platonic, artistic romance, between quite different selves. It would be wonderful to work together again. I also, a month or so ago, took part in work that fellow East Street Arts studio holder Carla Moss was doing towards a book work. She’s been researching time of late, and as part of her project we exchanged text messages at 3 hourly intervals (inspired by the Fibonacci sequence) throughout a 24 hour day. It was so strange, receiving and writing these private reflections, at times half asleep, usually in the middle of doing something else, framed by the spiraling of temporality.

The last couple of months have been flying by with lots of exciting work – running the Live Art Crash Courses with Compass in March, last month presenting at the I’m not sitting at the front seminar in Cardiff and Performing Documents conference in Bristol, and just last weekend performing in a group action for a special VIP event at ] Performance S p a c e [. I'm sure the next few months will go as quickly too - I'm thrilled to have been commissioned by Knowle West Media Centre to make new work as part of Foodscapes, and by East Street Arts to run a CycloGeography workshop with writer Caleb Parkin, as part of BikeFest (more on this soon...).

Foodscapes is an AHRC-funded project in collaboration with UWE, exploring food poverty, power and sustainability. Other partners include ELM - Knowle West's Edible Landscape Movement and The Matthew Tree Project, an organisation that runs food banks and provides support for people in need. It's the very early stages, but I'll be making three interventions in Bristol, one at The Parlour Showrooms in June, and two more between then and September. It comes at a very interesting time and is an incredibly pertinent theme - at the same time as we're seeing a demonisation of the poor in a lot of the press, a tightening of some benefits and cuts to a lot of services, it's no surprise that demand for foodbanks has risen dramatically, with a new one apparently opening every three days. How, as an artist, can I respond to this situation? What sense of responsibility do I have?

Photo courtesy Marco Beradi / Performance Space

It’s perhaps not by coincidence that I’ve been reflecting on my practice as a performer over the past couple of months. I realised (just before VANTAGE) that the current series of action performances I’ve been making has come to an end (I say current, in fact I’ve been developing this work over almost four years). I’ve also at the same time been doing a fair amount of research, writing and presenting on participation and social engagement in art (although profess to have neither expertise nor conclusions). At the aforementioned group action at ] PS [ the other week I brought almost no objects, no premeditated actions, and worked with very still, slow, almost banal movements and interactions. An audience member remarked afterwards that my performance had been almost invisible, which pleased me somewhat. I’ve been wondering what happens when I take a step back, if I can orchestrate situations, remain present, do almost nothing and let a work unfold itself. It’s not easy, requires trust, restraint and a razor sharpness. I’m still working on it, and will let you know.

For now though, the sun is shining and the outside is calling me…

So it’s been a predictably busy winter. Aside from the usual challenges of staying warm and surviving the various near snowpocalypses (snowpocali?) we’ve been having, I also feel like I’ve spent the last two months plugging away at funding applications and proposals. Exciting projects, and it’s great to build them with artists and organisations – the process can be pleasingly collaborative and creative, if slightly anticlimatic when you finally submit them and realise that you then have to wait another month or two before finding out if you actually get any money. The endless cycle… But some plans are coming to fruition already. I’m really pleased to be working with Dane Watkins and ] Performance S p a c e [ again, this time using the CONNECTION / TIME  interface that Dane and I developed last year to document the Ritually Reading and Researching event at ] PS [ this Friday. It looks to be intense, curious and wonderful. It’s a 12 hour creative research event facilitated by Bean, Benjamin and myself, and the texts submitted look incredible.

Then next week I’ll be back in Leeds to take part in VANTAGE, a new art prize instigated by the Departure Foundation and curated by the brilliant Adam Young. It looks like it’ll be a great exhibition, with a whole range of artists from across Leeds, I’m very much looking forward to seeing all of the work as well as presenting my own. Then in a couple of weeks I’ll be delivering a series of Live Art Crash Course workshops across Yorkshire, in collaboration with COMPASS Live Art, as well as partner organisations in each of the cities – East Street Arts in Leeds (2nd March), Point Blank in Sheffield (9th March) and OUI Performance in York (16th March). It really is a joy to be working with all of them, and I’m sure it’ll be brilliant to be presenting the workshops in such intensive succession. If you’d be interested it’s important you register in advance via the link on the COMPASS website, as spaces are very limited.

More soon, but in the mean time wishing you all a very happy new year – in the Tibetan calendar we’re entering the year of the female water snake, one of transformation. So to that and to you I raise a proverbial glass!

“After the autumn whirlwind” sounds a little dramatic I know (I’m a performance artist; aren’t I allowed to be?), but it really does feel like it’s been a real whirlwind few months. In a thoroughly good way, of course… As well performance trips to Toronto and Nottingham, and taking part in workshop / weekends at Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Langdon Beck in the upper Pennines, the past few months have been largely focussed on the Dances of Earthly Wonder project at Knowle West, south Bristol. It’s been such a rich and enjoyable project, working with different members of the team at Knowle West Media Centre and some of the community groups that they’re engaged with – NLarge young people’s photography, ELM food producers and the Eagle House bingo group. All have been a joy to work with, and it’s been a truly wonderful experience to connect with some of these individuals, to be welcomed into their communities, activities and spaces – from the community farm to the (usually) women’s only bingo group.

Performance at Eagle House Bingo

The people I’ve been getting to know have not only inspired the new works, but also participated in its documentation through the CONNECTION / TIME interface (developed by Dane Watkins and I at KWMC last year). There are some fantastic tweets and photos on the pages – follow the links below to see more and comment on them.

I was in Toronto a few weeks ago for the wonderful 7a*11d festival (“Canada’s longest-running performance art biennial”).  It was a stupendously well organised event, coordinated by the (volunteer) 7a*11d collective, in partnership with the FADO collective. Canada has a very strong history of artist-led initiatives, and it seems they really know how to make it work. As one of the 7a*11d members said to me “Because we’re artists, we know how we want to treat artists. Their generosity of spirit extended from insisting artists were picked up personally from the airport, to first and last night dinner parties at Tanya’s (another of the collective) house, to paying close attention to our needs for performance material, to providing delicious free lunches (for artists and audience) at the Performance Daily talk events. I’ve never felt so looked after at a festival, nor so much part of a temporarily community of artists and audience around the event. I met so many great local artists, as well as fellow internationals, who presented some amazing work.

Being very much still tied up with the Dances of Earthly Wonder project in Bristol (next post on that to follow soon…), I’m still catching up with documentation and the like. In the meantime, see below some of the wonderful pictures taken by the brilliant Henry Chan. Also, if you’re so inclined, do check out the festival blog

for reports on all of the festival performances including my own.

Summer, it seems, is on its way out, which means that back-to-school, beginning of the Autumn arts frenzy  feeling. (When I lived in the Netherlands, I remember there would be the annual ‘Uitmarkt’, an amazing festival marking the opening of the cultural season at the end of August). There’s the usual September busyness ahead, but it’s slightly different this year as I’ve spent most of the last three months moving our narrowboat home to Leeds. It’s a slow way to move house, but a pleasant one, and there’s no cardboard boxes involved. And it’s exciting relocating to Yorkshire, which thus far has been treating us very well. I’m now based at East Street Arts,  are a superb organisation providing lovely studios to fantastic people. I’m very pleased to be joining them and to be working alongside some super artists and friends both in Leeds and more widely across Yorkshire.

In art news, there’s much going on. I’m off to Aberystwyth next week to present a paper (‘Actuating the anomalous: performance art’s negotiation with the secular spiritual’) at the Performing Rituals conference, which sounds really interesting. Unfortunately I’ll not be able to attend the whole thing, feeling somewhat financially excluded as a non-institutionalised artist-researcher. It frustrates the hell out of me that academic events like this can cost £275 to attend, based on a system in which academics’ places are subsidised by their employing institutions and whose research is paid for in their full time salary. For those of us whose freelance income is a fraction of even the starting salary of an academic (and less, I have to admit, than that of a postgraduate bursary), and whose research is undertaken independently, attending research events poses a massive cost that is discouraging to say the least. I could rant on about this for ages, but suffice to say I’ve bitten the bullet this time (and will obviously be filling my pockets at the buffet lunch…)

Also, rather excitingly, I’m working on a new project with Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol. After the success of the ACE-funded R&D phase of CONNECTION / TIME in April and May, we’re taking the project forward with some exciting new steps and developments. KWMC have commissioned me to make a series of new performances in Knowle West, and will, in parallel, be further developing access to the interface so that it will be more widely available to users anywhere. These new performances (working title ‘Dances of Earthly Wonder’) will be solo works taking place around Knowle West, embedded within local community contexts, but streamed live online via the interface. I’m still researching and developing ideas for the performances themselves, but have been looking into ideas of harvest and at weird and wonderful English folk traditions, including morris dancing. A couple of weeks ago I was at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at the English Folk Dance and Song Society, might also try to get to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford if time will allow, and have found a morris dancing team in Leeds to infiltrate. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun!

] Performance S p a c e [ in Hackney Wick, one of the parters on the previous phase of the project, have already been using CONNECTION / TIME for 'Ritually Reading and Researching', 12-hour long overnight research / reading / processing sessions that are part of their Performing Documents (University of Bristol and InBetween Time) about their using it to document practice-based elements of their research project, and their symposium in a few weeks. Dane has also been building a home page to archive all of the CONNECTION / TIME events to date, which is currently on http://whosedata.net/connection/time/

I’m also preparing a new performance for 7a*11d performance festival in Toronto. It’ll be a great chance to work with some of the best performance artists over in Canada, and to see friends old and new. But more on that next time, I’ve got a conference paper to write…

I came across this on a lovely blog site the other day, http://apoetreflects.tumblr.com/ Who the author of the blog is, I don’t know, nor how I got there, but such is the wonder of cyberspace. And against my usual academic diligence, I’m going to share it even though it doesn’t cite the original source text, page numbers, etc.  Completely unreliable, but one’s allowed an occasional casual reference now and again, surely? (Just don’t tell my old students). It’s too good not to.

“The problem is no longer getting people to express themselves, but providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people from expressing themselves, but rather, force them to express themselves. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, or ever rarer, the thing that might be worth saying.” Gilles Deleuze

So June is here, and with it the British Summer, which in my case has involved much standing on the back of a boat in the cold pouring rain as Mr P and I relocate our narrowboat home to Yorkshire… But that means that the R&D phase of Connection / Time is over already, so do have a look on the site at info about the project and by following the links (which feel a little clumsy, I know) to the documentation pages. They’re worth it when you get there!

In other news, I’m running a Live Art Crash Course at Arnolfini in July. The last couple of times I’ve run it (at Arnolfini and at Performance Platform in Dundee) it’s been great fun, and people have really enjoyed it. I’ll be mixing it up a bit this time, and as ever trying to be responsive to participants’ needs. If you’re interested in attending or know anyone who might be then do get in touch with Arnolfini or with me via the blog (though I have to apologise in advance for sporadic internet connection over the next few weeks…) And some more performances in the summer, in Bristol definitely and who knows where else…!