People – Page 6 – The Collection Of…

Initial Ideas

Francesca Maria Izzo / February 12, 2013May 13, 2013 / Development, Inspiration, People

This week we formed performance groups and decided where we wanted to perform in the Collection Gallery. As a few of us had chosen to study and research observations in the cafe, we decided this would be a good place to influence our performance. We conferred our experiences of the cafe and exchanged what we had observed which stood out for us individually. This then lead to us mind mapping possible performance options. A few of our initial ideas include making and putting on an exhibition in the cafe as this is the only area in the two buildings which doesn’t resemble an exhibition and therefore would be interesting to subvert the usual connotations attached to a cafe. One of the ways we thought we could do this would be by putting texts next to the individual artefacts which is done throughout the Collection and Usher Gallery. A couple of members of our group had also noticed a painting in the Usher Gallery, ‘Bound By Love’ which they felt stood out to them, as the painting didn’t connect with the other paintings in the same gallery. Therefore, we decided we would try and incorporate and merge the painting into our performance with the cafe.

From our collective recorded observations we noticed people don’t seem to be observant of other people and appear in their own world. Therefore we thought our exhibition could be about observation- how people look at things but aren’t really seeing or how people shut themselves off from everyone else; both in the cafe and in society. After this I read the introduction of Theatre and Museums where Kirschenblatt- Gimblett says, ‘todays museum is a theater, a memory palace, a stage for the enactment of other times and places’ (Bennett, 2013, p.4).Therefore making me think our piece could represent the observations we have noticed and recorded in the cafe by acting our snippets from what we have seen and heard, therefore representing and re-enacting real life events which at the same time displays our and other people’s memories of the cafe.

This then caused us to think of a research question to help us develop our ideas and create a focus for our piece, ‘How can you integrate the exhibitions and cafe into the performance area? What effect does this have and what atmosphere does it create?’ This then gave us further questions which lead to some answers on how we were going to develop our piece. We took inspiration from the painting and realised the architecture of the buildings (the cafe and the education room) were similar to the faces in the painting. The distance was similar and made us think of the distance between each person who visited the cafe and the outside world. We thought a good way to physically connect the building with the picture would be to use string and create a similar stitch pattern like the one in the painting.

BBC (2013) Your Paintings, Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/alexei-grigoriev (accessed: 2nd February 2013)

Bennett, Susan (2013) Theatre and Museums, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

The gallery, first encounter…

Holly Rudd / February 5, 2013May 12, 2013 / People, Space

During my first look at The Collection Gallery I was more intrigued by the architecture of the building than the works contained within it. I liked the idea of using the building to formulate a piece from just looking at the way in which the building was held together. I want to look more into the way that the architecture affects the uses of the building and how the public view the collection gallery as it stands next to the less modern usher gallery. Does it look out of place? An eyesore? Or is it a beauty in its own right?

To document my appreciation of the architecture of the gallery I have started to recreate the collection gallery building using cardboard, this allows me to look into the detail of the gallery a lot further in my attempt to recreate it. This will also help with our future ideas as we can use it to build models of our set therefore trying our ideas out before we set off to do it on a much larger scale.

‘Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett makes an even more explicit comparison: ‘exhibitions are fundamentally theatrical, for they are how museums perform the knowledge to create’ (Destination Culture, 1998, p. 3). Traditionally, of course, museums arranged their collections in predictable, linear narratives, committed to organizational categories intended to be definitive’ (Bennett, 2013, pg 4) This quote from Theatre and Museums shows how museums can be seen as theatre as well as exhibits. I agree with this, that an art gallery is theatrical in concept. Performer’s present work, a gallery does exactly the same. I like the idea of a gallery being theatre, I believe it give the visitors a chance to become an audience and view the piece and infer it’s meaning. Art is open to interpretation similar to many Site-Specific performances, this itself is an interesting observation and this has now given me a new view of the gallery and I now feel that I will look at the exhibitions differently upon my next visit to the gallery.

I was particularly interested with the cafe, the architecture within it is beautiful with lots of different layers and levels using different materials to contrast and complement one another. I would like to base a performance in this area as it has natural frames to the place. The windows in the cafe are like big frames to the outside world connecting the frames of the gallery artwork to the space in the cafe. There is one big window that points up towards the cathedral and frames it up on steep hill. I think using the architecture to frame the piece would be a nice way to get the beauty of the building in with the idea of Site-Specific performance.

Bennett, Susan (2013) Theatre and Museums, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Initial ideas…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / February 5, 2013May 11, 2013 / Inspiration, People

We decided on the café as our main performance space and cleared permission to use the space. Initially we had a lot of ideas sprouting off in different directions so it wasn’t clear which path our piece would take and sometimes throughout the process we often overthought ideas and tried to make it more into a theatre performance rather than it connecting and relating to our chosen site.

Ideas included:

Create something in the café that doesn’t belong there, such as an exhibition or installation.
Create shadows in the window with white cloth and create a shadow performance (more theatre performance rather than relating to the site).
Each person representing a different representation of the café.
Each member to sit in an alcove and talk to themselves.

Look into ideas to influence our piece such as;

Reckless sleepers, the last supper.
Documentation, possibly using Verbatim Theatre to create our script as it could give it a more personal feel.

Documentation/ Research of Cafe

Jennie Chapman / February 4, 2013May 12, 2013 / Development, Inspiration, People

Reading the introduction to Susan Bennett’s book Theatre and Museums, it has allowed me to further understand the context of our site.

“theatres and museums are crucial to a city’s vitality and appeal” (Bennett,2013, p3).

In comparison to some of the other sites for this module, The Collection at first glance seemed to be the hardest to respond to as it already has a function and purpose, what could we do as a performance in response? It felt as though we were limited with what we could do, but then again, in some way this gave our group a head start as there was plenty of inspiration from the different exhibitions and galleries. “Both theatre and museums require an infrastructure supported by a diverse range of technical and intellectual skills, acts of interpretation and mediation, and eventually, an audience” (Bennett, 2013,p4).

As well as highlighting theatre and museum commonalities, Bennett then goes on to speak of theatre in museums, which is even more relevant to our purpose. Although we are not directly responding to what is in the museum as in re-enacting the past, as explained in this section, we are engaging with the whole site; to things that may not even be noticed or thought about on a daily basis. Our performances will still “enhance the visitor’s appreciation and critical understanding” (Bennett,2013, p7) but of the entire site as well as its exhibitions and galleries.

After having some initial performance ideas for our piece, we started to research further into café culture and different reasons as to why people go to cafes and who those people are. Reading from ‘Theatre/Archaeology’ the main points that came from it were to be true to the history of the space and the motion of uncertainty as the artist(s) do not know how the audience will respond to the work.

By the observations we made in the cafe whilst there we were intrigued as to why people go to cafes and who those people are. We researched the history of The Collection, the building itself and also the café owners ‘Stokes’ to understand the importance of the café within The Collection. Stokes of Lincoln describe the cafe: “The sleek, modern café is housed in Lincoln’s archaeological museum fused with the Usher Gallery in one incredible visitor centre” (R. W. Stokes & Sons Ltd, 2012)

Whilst researching for general opinions of cafes and why people go to them I found an article titled ’20 reasons why creative people like to go to cafes.’ The writer of which said it is a ‘”third place between work and home, where you can relax without the worries associated with either” (Dirkoff, 2012)

Another article I came across more specifically based on museums and cafe describes cafe as thus: “Cafés are rather like good exhibitions” (Brown, 2006) This opinion given here has given me confidence in our ideas we have for our performance. Within the cafe there are people who by coming to the cafe highlight the different activity and what we find most intriguing; why do people come to cafes? However later on the writer comments “the downside is that cafés are not static exhibits” (Brown, 2006) Does it matter that cafe’s are not static exhibitions? Due to our ideas of turning the cafe into an exhibition we want the audience to see the cafe for what it is in action. Or could we look on the other side and make the cafe a static exhibition similar to the ones we have seen within the museum?

Bound by Love

This painting hanging in the Usher Gallery has become another influence on our ideas for a performance in the café, The location of the painting in the gallery is rather random as the other paintings in the particular room are landscapes of Lincoln and other landscapes where as this is a surrealist painting. We made it link with the people who come to the café and why. For example, those on a first date might go to a café as it is an informal setting and relaxed atmosphere. The two ‘people’ in the painting are lovers trying to come together. This also linked with our observation of the café being separate from the rest of the building and us wanting to make the café an exhibition itself, joining the whole building together. Using the courtyard space between the café and the other side of the building we want to somehow recreate the painting for our performance to represent the people and emphasise the architecture.

Works Cited:

Bennett, Susan (2013) Theatre and Museums, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brown, Chris, 2006, Successful Cafe Museums, [online] Available at: http://www.aim-museums.co.uk/downloads/fe0a6c94-dd78-11e1-bdfc-001999b209eb.pdf, Accessed on: 4th February 2013.

Dirkoff, Mitch, 2012, Huffpost Arts and Culture, [online] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitch-ditkoff/creativity-cafe_b_1879907.html, Accessed: 4th February 2013.

Lincolnshire County Council, 2013, The Collection. [online] Available at: http://www.thecollectionmuseum.com/ [Accessed on 28th March 2013].

Pearson, Mike and Michael Shanks (2001) Theatre/Archaeology, London: Routledge.

R. W. Stokes & Sons Ltd, 2012, Stokes of Lincoln, [online] Available at: http://www.stokes-coffee.co.uk/index.html, Accessed on: 4th February 2013

The Collection, 2012. The Collection Profile Provision Performance 2012-13. Lincoln: The Collection.

My inital response to the space.

Gabriel / February 3, 2013April 20, 2013 / People, Space

While walking around The Collection for the first time, I was instantly drawn to the space of The Collection’s cafe.

The Cafe is a very busy place giving the people there not only a chance to view the performance but even be part of it, if our group wanted that to be the case. That is the first thing that drew me to this Cafe. It is already a busy working environment, to see a performance there would be in an interesting contrast.

The Cafe responds to the polish directors Grotowski’s productions of creating a lived in environment. We like Grotowski could create a performance where the actors are sitting in amongst the audience.

As I first walked in I saw the different levels around the cafe.

Just by walking in we see three levels, with very high ceilings. I thought how much a performance would be able to move in this space. A performance could move into the three areas and show their performance by what level of the space they are in. I enjoyed the deep contrast between the high open space full of light to the bottom level which is low ceilings, a small space which is quite dark.

To use the space as a symbolic piece for the performance is something I want to keep in mind.

Along with the different levels, there are also contrasts of space. In these big windows in the cafe you could look across and see the start or end of a performance outside and make it move inside. Even if you start outside people would still be able to see and wonder about the performance.

Thus I don’t think the performance moving from place to place would be jarring but move fluidly.

I believe with these different levels and different places the Cafe would be an excellent place to put the performance with so many ways to get the space to interact and work with the performance.