The Collection Of… – Page 26 – 'experiences of contemporary museums as theatre' (Bennett,S 2013)

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

Our Initial Response and Idea

Jade Nicholls / February 12, 2013May 13, 2013 / Cultural Terrorists, Inspiration, Research

During the very first lesson we had on Site Specific we found it hard to get to grips with the performance piece we was being asked to create. We did not believe as a whole class we would be able to come up with an idea which could work in the James Usher gallery. Because we were given the gallery as a site we firstly thought of doing a contemporary dance piece, as this may fit around the surroundings. However after extensive research into other companies Site Specific performances we became excited about how unique we could make our performance. Also after reading Michael Pearson, ‘Introduction to Site Specific’, the task became more understanding and this is when our ideas as a group came together.

The first time we explored the gallery we were surprised about how big the two sites we had been given were and this meant we were able to create a performance without being restricted. However there was the set back that the gallery was being ‘re-hung’, meaning whatever we had seen may move by the time it comes round to our performance. We first of all decided that we liked a window which looked out into Lincoln in the room which explores the History of Lincoln itself. We believed this would be extremely interesting to research as we are new to Lincoln it would be beneficial for us to find out the background of the town we now live in. Next to the window there was a timeline of what was outside the window many years ago, for example ‘2000 years ago you would have looked out through oak woodlands, down to a marshy river’. Although the facts we had read were interesting we decided the space near the window was to small to create the kind of piece we wanted. We did not want it to be subtle and knew we needed to make use of the space in the rest of the gallery and museum. Whilst then exploring the Usher Gallery, we noticed a recurring theme of clocks and pocket watches, after research we found out this was because James Usher was actually a watch maker and collected them himself (see other post). After discovery this information we knew as a group we would definitely base our performance around time and clocks, our aim was still vague at this point but we knew at least a small concept of the idea. We then went on to find a room in the Usher Gallery which is upstairs; it is a huge space with many paintings of how Lincoln used to look. We found the photos extremely interesting to see how much the town had completely changed. This then gave us another small idea for our piece that we wanted to base out performance in Lincoln but by bringing something new to Lincoln.

As a group we all done separate research and thought about many different ideas. We then met up and discussed each individual idea and tried to combine these into one performance. We are using ‘Lonetwin’ as an inspiration towards our performance also (see other post). The initial idea was to make sure we interpret time and show our different culture as we are all from areas surrounding London which is extremely different to Lincoln. We come up with moulding the iconic clock ‘The Big Ben’, which is in London, and placing it into the gallery during the performance, as if we are smuggling our own culture into Lincoln. We decided that polystyrene would be a good material to use and it is light and easy to carve. Furthermore we thought about the costumes we would wear and came up with the idea of wearing balaclavas as it would be more shocking to the public walking through and would highlight the idea that we are not meant to be bringing this sculpture into the gallery. A soundscape was an idea we were also keen to use, and have decided to play throughout the room noises you would usually here whilst in London and maybe even sayings or songs which are iconic to London. Under each clock dial on ‘The Big Ben’ it says in Latin, “Domine Salvam fal Reginam nostrum Victoriam primam”, which translates to, “O lord, save our Queen Victoria the first”, we thought this maybe a good quote to repeat whilst we were sculpting.

After ordering some polystyrene and trying to carve it into Big Ben it was more difficult than we thought and also very expensive to buy. This gave us doubts about the sculpting idea and we began to research other materials we could use. We are happy we decided to try this option out very soon as it shows us that we need to come up and try out many different ideas.

Research on The Usher Gallery and James Ward Usher.

Fotini Efstathiou / February 7, 2013April 20, 2013 / Cultural Terrorists, Research

We have done some research on The Usher Gallery and James Ward Usher himself as we believe knowing the history of the site could be used and interpreted into our performance to ensure it is relevant to the site we are working/performing in.

The Usher Gallery:

. Opened in 1927 following a bequest to the city by Lincoln jeweller James Ward Usher.

. Usher collected a lot of the art that is displayed in the gallery. He built his collection up over 30 years and it consisted of ceramics, watches, clocks, coins, silver, miniatures and paintings.

. Usher himself was a talented artist.

. He never married therefore in his will he left his collection to the city of Lincoln on the understanding that it would be the basis for a museum and art gallery that would bear his name.

. He left almost £60000 towards the cost of the building which was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.

. He was educated at Lincoln Grammar School and Totteridge Park School

.1886 he was the first business man in Lincoln to introduce electricity into his shop from his own generating plant.

.Chose the ‘Lincoln Imp’ as his logo at the jewellers

.Honoured with the position of Sheriff in Lincoln in 1916

As Sir Reginald Blomfield designed the building for The Usher Gallery we thought it may be helpful to research his life as well as we could link his involvement to the building with our performance as well.

.Blomfield was an architect, garden designer and an author

.He was educated at Haileybury School and Exeter College, Oxford. He graduated with a first-class degree in Classics.

.He played a major part in the completion of the Quadrant in Regent Street and the Lambert bridge, both situated in London.

Why we thought it would be relevant to look into the history of The Usher Gallery was due to our discussion of the corporation of time which was inspired by the collection of clocks and watches in the gallery. Knowing the history and portraying it during our performance emphasises the notion of time that is linked to the site we are working in.

Another interesting factor was the architecture of the building compared to James Usher himself. It is evident he was a business man and part of the middle classes but The Usher Gallery itself seems to replicate that of a manor house which was more associated with the upper classes during the 1920’s when the gallery was built. This could be an interesting factor to explore. An idea I had which was inspired by the crockery and tea set collection in the gallery was that half way during our performance to sit down and have afternoon tea thus channelling the contrast between the working class (Usher) and the upper class (the architecture of the building). It could also be interesting to link the architect himself Sir Reginald Blomfield to our performance. A way in which we could link this is through our ‘cultural smuggling’ of London in the shape of Big Ben into the gallery as Blomfield influenced the architecture of large landmarks in London so therefore not only are we introducing ‘cultural smuggling’ into our performance we are linking it to the history and the architect of The Usher Gallery.

The inspiration for the incorporation of time.

Artistic Statement

Lacey Cole / February 5, 2013May 9, 2013 / Cultural Terrorists, Development

While it seems we have moved away from our original first ideas, there are still some components we have previously considered that will be included. Instead of performing in the Collection, we have chosen a room upstairs in the Usher Gallery. We still want to connect the history of the site with modern elements found elsewhere, but have chosen to focus less on Lincoln and rather on our own history and roots. With that in mind, we have drafted an artistic statement relating to our new idea.

“It is our intention to smuggle our personal culture into a historical city, in order to juxtapose our ‘otherness’ with the narrative of the site. In order to do this, we plan on creating a sculptural model of Big Ben to signify our personal history. Within this cultural context, we also hope to include sound and costume that will strengthen our aim. By moving certain elements of London into such a cultural space, we hope the audience will be encouraged to explore their own history within an incongruous site.”

Elements to Consider

What sort of soundscape shall we use?
What sort of costume? Shall this relate to our personal culture or the Gallery?
How can we signify London clearly?
How long do we want our performance to be?

Author: Lacey Cole

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