Category: People

Progression

Francesca Maria Izzo / / Experimentation, People, Research

This week our group met at the cafe and discussed and experimented with some ideas developing from our main aim of putting on an exhibition outside the cafe. One of our ideas was to portray the quotes we have heard from the visitors of the cafe on the steps outside the cafe with chalk. However, from trying this out we realised it didn’t look as clear or effective as we imagined and as a result, developed this idea of using the text on a cafe menu whilst Jennie and Gabriel recite the quotes they have heard which contrasts the subtle with the obvious.

Another idea was for me to stand or sit in a glass box drinking tea to symbolise the people in the cafe are shut off from everyone else and unobservant of the other people in the cafe. It would also make the visitors of our exhibition observe the visitor in the cafe just as we have been doing on a weekly basis. However, we were unable to get permission to use one of the glass cases which the Collection gallery owns as they are too expensive and are already used for displaying artefacts in the museum. Therefore we decided to use a black wooded platform instead and represent the staff in the cafe as the staff are just as important as the customers in the observation of the cafe. As a result, it made me think whilst we were occupied observing and focusing on the customers we didn’t pay attention to the staff and therefore having me dressed as a staff member on a platform quoting things we’ve heard them saying, it makes the visitors of our exhibition notice them too.

As we are exhibiting things from the cafe, such as a cake stand holding cupcakes and a tea set in a glass plinth, we also tried to think of other things we could represent from the cafe. The main one we realised was the menu which is written on massive chalkboard inside the cafe. Therefore we have created our own chalkboard to write our own specials on for our performance. For example, it may read ‘Today’s specials are: Gabriel talking to himself as the reader, Jennie talking to herself as the working man, Francesca stood on a platform’. This therefore uses the same device of the cafe but has our own twist on it.

Another initial idea we had was to put lettering on the windows of the cafe and the education room to show ‘the observation’ and ‘the mimic’. As materials for this were hard to find for example plastic window lettering, we decided to make our own out of A4 coloured card and laminate it to make it look professional. The coloured card reflects the colours of the education room and makes the words stand out from the tinted windows, especially as the actions in the education window will need to be made aware of and obvious to the visitors who may not notice Shellie and Holly otherwise. The bright, large colours will also contrast with the subtle actions from me Gabriel and Jennie.

Throughout our rehearsals and planning process, trying to access ladders to put up string to connect the cafe and education room buildings to mirror the image in the painting, ‘Bound By Love’  had proved difficult. Unfortunately, even though the painting was one of our first inspirations for our piece, we decided it would be too much of a risk to attempt to do it on the day of our performance without any trial runs and we actually realised the string would not be necessary anymore as it no longer connected with the rest of our piece.

Further Development

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / / Development, People

The initial ideas didn’t all work but it was nice to experiment with them. The chalk down the stairs was tested but didn’t look as professional as we had hoped and you couldn’t really read what was said, to have taken this further it would have required using a different type of lettering.  The picture idea also didn’t make it into our final exhibition, not because it wasn’t a good idea but because it didn’t really fit with everything else in the final piece.
Our final exhibition included:

  • Having only two people sat talking to themselves outside instead of three, three people was just too much and two people proved as much of a point as three.
  • We had the third person on a platform portraying our opinion of a café worker, she would greet at random times, directing this speech to no one in particular.
  • We still included the idea of the education room but at the last minute we moved its position because we felt like it would be better framed and could be seen by a wider audience, some of who wouldn’t know why we were up there.
  • A chalk board, explaining who each person was and what it was that they were doing – this was a way to introduce our piece and make it a little clearer, it also links back to the café because it was similar to that of a specials board that was inside the café at The Collection.
  • We want to hopefully frame one of the windows so that if you’re looking from the outside then it encourages you to look inside the café and have a proper look.
  • As well as these ideas we have a few that we can only really try out on the day, they are not really to key to our piece but do help set the scene. This is having a tea set and a cake stand each in their own little plinths so they become part of the exhibit with a placard similar to that which you see in The Collection galleries.

Our piece could all go wrong on the day but I think this adds to the excitement a little. We have secured the use of some of The Collections items such as the plinths, a platform which I need to go and paint and also some things that help us to block the public from going any further forward. I think we have done everything we can to prepare for the day, let’s just hope it doesn’t rain otherwise some people might get a little bit wet as when we decided to take it outside we agreed that if it was to rain on the day that it would still go ahead as planned.

Final ideas

Holly Rudd / / People

Our final performance is an exhibition of the least exhibited part of the gallery; the cafe.

Through our observations and listening to conversations we realize that there is a lot to look at and listen to whilst in a cafe especially in an art gallery. We decided on exhibiting these features.

We will have a cake stand

Cake Stand

A tea set

Tea Set

and a specials board

Specials Board

All of these familiar cafe features will be displayed in a professional manner much like the gallery would. We will use cases from the gallery itself to house some of our exhibits and we are placing barriers to keep people away from the exhibits, we did this to make our gallery profession much like the actual gallery itself. Another way which we will do this is to put up placards that explained what each exhibit was.

‘Museum display has attracted the interest of performance studies scholars because it forces engagement with the important issues about representing cultures and identities and the social production of meaning in time and space’ (Allain, 2006, pg 175) I think this quote helps to define our attraction to the way in which museums display their works. It ‘forces engagement’ because our piece is and instillation like an exhibit you would expect to find in a gallery people feel the need to look at things like they would a art gallery. I hope that this is the case and our audience feel compelled to explore the space and interpret our exhibits for themselves.

We as performers are presenting what we have seen and heard in the cafe but on a more emphasised scale; causing people to notice things they might not normally.

We will have two tables set up by the windows to frame them and to reflect real life within the cafe. The two members of our group at this table were reciting things to themselves that we had heard people say in conversation during our observations. I feel that this will grab people’s attention as the wander by and allow them to make their own observations.

We are going to have a greeter; this member of our group will stand on a platform and address audience members as they come past. They will offer up phrases that could be heard by a member of the staff within the cafe, such as; How can I help?, Would you like ice with that?, which table are you sitting at? And thank you, we look forward to seeing you again soon.

We will then have two members of the group in a glass window of the adjoining building to the cafe; this is another way of framing our observations as they were in effectively a glass box. These two were mimicking much like children would a pair of adults. They are going to act and be dressed as adults but they showed the idea of childlike mimicry by using a Childs table set and tea set.

We are going to use verbatim strongly in our piece as we feel it has a strong connection with what galleries do. They exhibit people’s ideas and work. Therefore we are going to display through verbatim the general public’s thoughts and feelings.

‘ “Verbatim theatre” The term…. refers to a form of theatre which places interviews with people at the heart of its process and product’ (Headicke, 2009, pg 115) within our performance we have used aspects of verbatim, we gathered our information by listening to conversations and observing peoples behaviours as we felt it was the best way to get peoples true feelings rather than ask people to participate in interviews as this could mess with the information that we found.

Our performance is taking place at The Collection Gallery on Danes Terrace in Lincoln. We are going to be presenting our gallery between 12 and 2 on Saturday the 4th of May. Feel free to come along and experience our exhibition.

Event page

 

 

Allain, Paul and Jen Harvie (2006) The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance, New York: Routledge

Headicke, Susan C. et al (2009) Political Performances (Theory and Practices), Netherlands: Editions Rodopi B.V.

Final Changes

Jennie Chapman / / Development, Experimentation, People

After much discussion and plenty of thinking, our group has decided to move out of the cafe and into the courtyard space. We have done this whilst thinking of our audience and the feedback we received. We felt that we could leave the cafe so we were not limiting ourselves to audience restrictions and partly because we did not want to inconvenience anyone! But also the space is larger and it enables us to use the framed alcove seating which is something we have liked from the beginning.

From the feedback we realised that we had lost the idea of making the cafe a exhibition; our original idea. After much more experimentation and some more feedback, the key was to keep it simple. Along with this relocation, we decided that the painting ‘Bound by Love’ was no longer relevant to our piece as it did not fit in with the concept of making the cafe an exhibition.

“Exhibition involves imposition of order on objects, brought into a particular space and a specific set of relations with one another” (Rugg and Sedgwick, 2007, p 29).

We had many ideas of the different ‘exhibits’ we could have outside including the conversations/quotes written down the stairs and a collage of photos of the cafe on the wall, however after thought and experiments these did not work. This left us with our two static exhibits of a cake stand and a tea set.

We maintained our part in the performance but altered Fran’s part. The first idea was to have Fran on a platform re-enacting a person in the cafe siting at a table drinking tea and eating something however with our mimic in the Education windows was still in place we decided that it was not needed. It then came that Fran would take on the character of a worker in the cafe, as this was another type of person we had observed whilst doing our earlier experiments, and be  the third part to our exhibits of people including myself and Gabriel.

A new idea that came to light was the need for explanation of our exhibition. How are we to do this? We are going to take the idea of the ‘Specials’ board in the cafe and give a brief explanation for each part of our performance. This will hopefully help others to understand the concept behind our performance and encourage our audience to see new perspectives.

Works Cited:

Rugg, Judith and Michele Sedgwick(2007) Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, Bristol: Intellect Books.

Health and safety

Holly Rudd / / Development, People, Uncategorized

So as our ideas are in need of us using university owned ladders and its getting a bit late in the day we are beginning to see how unimportant the stringing of the buildings now is. We have defiantly strayed from our original ideas but I am enjoying the idea we now have.

To begin with I didn’t really like Site-Specific but now I am enjoying the freedom to create that we truly have. Maybe it would have been easier on ourselves to have started with this idea originally but I think we needed to go with the direction our previous ideas took us on to get to the end result.

We are now planning on taking the gallery outside and creating our our exhibition filling the space that is empty between the gallery and the cafe with our art. Our art is inspired by the cafe itself and is a instillation. We are hoping to do it for an extended amount of time to allow the audience to wander in at their own leisure to discover what we have to offer. We hope they will interpret our piece in their own unique way and take something away with them.

Our performance is taking place at The Collection Gallery on Danes Terrace in Lincoln. We are going to be presenting our gallery between 12pm and 2pm on Saturday the 4th of May. Feel free to come along and experience our exhibition.