art gallery exhibition vS. live performance

Bringing the project to life

When I originally came up with the idea of this project, way back in 2012, it was initially devised as an exhibition in a conventional art gallery. It’s only more recently that I’m wondering whether it would be more suited to a performance? (This reimagining, the inevitable luxury/downside of a work-in-progress.) At the moment, this project as performance is in its infancy… the bones of an idea, if you like. But the idea of it being an ephemeral piece has a potent appeal. A one night only piece. Ideally somewhere beautiful and crumbling such as Wilton’s Music Hall in London. The oldest surviving music hall in the world. It’s my favourite venue, with its crumbling facade, its diverse history, from alehouse to a stage for theatre, circus acts, and soup kitchen run by Methodist missionaries. The glamour, the beauty, the grotesque, the dereliction, inevitable abandonment and rebirth. A place with its own myriad personas. It’s perfect. I find it to be a magical venue which elevates and enhances everyone who takes to its stage. The visuals, the soundscape and the subjects narrating in person could work beautifully. These live performances would breathe more life into the project and the intimacy of the venue would add to the claustrophobic feel I’d envisaged.