Documentation/ Research of Cafe

Jennie Chapman / / 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.

Bound by Love    P1010257

 

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 / / 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.

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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.

 

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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.

 

Origins Cont.

Eloise Grace Henshaw / / Nova Inventa, Research

Date: Tuesday 29th January

‘There doesn’t need to be a distinction between life and art! Life can BE art’ -Alan Caproe.

This is a quote that we have decided to follow as a group. As drama students, a lot of what we do depends on script work and devising a piece. When looking in to other practitioners that used site as their stimulus, a general characteristic of their work is that it doesn’t necessarily make sense, and is often open to interpretation. We really want to focus on life as art, mainly hammering in on obscurity.

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Forgotten. Sights.

Every time we walk past some thing of beauty, out appreciation of said subject deteriorates. Walking past a thing of beauty frequently can cause unappreciative attitudes. All we have to do is stop and look. Take time out of our busy days and just look. Take in the surroundings, rather than letting them pass you by.

What we learned from this was that space does not necessarily have to be interesting or obscure for people to appreciate it.

It was from this that we began to question what is needed to make some one stop and notice what is going on around them and really take in their surroundings.

This lead further in to the idea of obscurity and the way in which peoples’ perception of places change.

An underlying idea for this week was the idea of making some thing happen in a space which would usually be passed by in the collection by the general public and those that work there, and make something happen in order to draw attention to, and expose the space.

After exploring the collection, we came across a piece that contains a video of everyday things happening, but sped up. This is something that Caproe was trying to portray – ordinariness exemplified as an art form.

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Until next time! xx

Ellie Henshaw

Word Count: 319

First Ideas

Lacey Cole / / Cultural Terrorists, Research, Space

Having looked around the space and had a chance to feel comfortable in both buildings, we have had some time to think of possible ideas for our performance. Interestingly, Susan Bennett’s book Theatre and Museums focuses on the link between acting and where a piece is staged, for example a museum. Being that we have a chance to perform in The Collection Museum, I found it interesting to note that ‘museums traffic mostly in material designated as representing the past, while theatrical performance takes place resolutely in the present’ (Bennett 2012, p.5). Obvious as this may be, this confronts the idea of our performance being ‘site’ specific, and whether this means we need to focus on the history of the building. Is it instead possible to make a modern element the main feature of our performance and simply touch on the history of the building? In this way, we will still have free theatrical reign and our ideas may be able to flow more freely.

Whilst considering this, we have also spent time in both buildings and so far have been more drawn to a corner of the Collection with a large window that looks out onto some modern glass offices. This may be another way of connecting historical and modern elements of Lincoln within our performance piece, as there is a large sign in that area discussing the development of Lincoln from fields to concrete. According to this sign, ‘2000 years ago it was woodland’, and ‘100 years ago there was red brick’. Therefore we must consider the changes the site has gone through to become the Usher Gallery and the Collection Museum. By connecting these elements we may be able to delve deeper in the details of the site, whilst getting our audience to consider a future building that may stand in place of the Collection, as the Collection stands where fields once were. Whilst we consider history, we must also consider the future.

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Pottery in The Collection Museum

References: Bennett, Susan (2012) Theatre and Museums, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Lacey Cole.

 

So the journey begins…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / / Inspiration, People, Space

‘Site Specificity arises precisely in uncertanties over the borders and limits of work and site…’ ((Kaye, N Site Specific Art, (2000) p.215))

Exploring The Collection and the connecting Usher Gallery, I can see many interesting spaces that have great potential to be unusual performance spaces, such as up on the balcony between the two education rooms, the space underneath the building outside, just name a few.
Looking at The Collection and The Usher Gallery its clearer how different they are, so depending on which type of performance you wish to create depends on what site you would chose. For example the Usher Gallery is more of a place to sit and reflect whereas The Collection is more of a social, education place. One that caught the group’s eye was that of the café, situated in The Collection.

The café is owned by the company Stokes, who has several other cafes around Lincoln. We were initially interested in the architecture of the café and liked the fact that the ceiling was several different heights with lights hanging from the ceiling which all levelled out at the same height. Even though some of the casing that surrounded these lights was broken I still thought it was pretty.

It is not often that I look at a space in so much detail but I was really noticing so much that I normally wouldn’t. Looking from outside into the space I was amazed to see that the alcoves inside looked like they could be framed by the windows because it was sectioned off in a way from the rest of the café, it was on a raised step and looked interesting from the outside and this gave us an initial idea to want to use these for part of our performance as they were interesting to view from inside and outside. Looking at the overall space outside it was interesting to look at how the two buildings could be connected and yet they are far apart creating an outside space which can be used for the café during summer.