Creative collision

Exeter is rapidly becoming a real hotspot for innovative theatre. This includes many performance and participatory activities that don't take place in buildings, so the crossover into fine art practice is very pronounced.

Kaleider is one of the organisations driving this movement and, a few weeks back, I accepted an invitation to attend one of their 'Open Fridays'. It was odd walking into someone else's office space just to hang out and eat a packed lunch, but they offered a warm welcome and good conversation.  And it turned out we had a little more in common than I first thought. Their work as producers and mentors of live performance is rooted in a concern with climate change, the fiscal crisis and the end of oil.

So a month later I was back delivering an informal talk: the first proper public articulation of my ongoing project Foreign Soil. This documented attempt to grow edible dessert bananas outdoors on a Devon farm is meant as a provocation for thoughts about the sustainability of our food supply.

From there I was coaxed into joining their Ideas Lab - designed as development tool for writers and performers applying for Kaleider commissions, but in fact a really exciting forum where environmentalists, activists, artists, performers, educators, poets, actors, directors and many others met to share ideas.

All the stand-up, quick-fire brainstorming and improvised role play was hard work for me - an artist who thinks on paper (or with her hands) and who looks to research and reflection for ideas rather than riffing with other people.  But it was good to see how another group of artists went about their business and to share in their amazing energy.  It was also a great opportunity to network with like-minded people - and much more may come of that.

Questions of reputation

I feel it's time to retire my blog about the Exeter Studios Project on a-n.co.uk Artists Talking. It's now five years since I stopped writing it (seven since I started) and, as many of the issues are out of date, its educational value for other studio start-ups is on the wane.

More importantly, I'm not the same person who wrote that blog. I was a new artist and so desperate for workspace that I ignored my instincts about some of the people who volunteered themselves as directors. I started writing the blog as a way of logging our progress, raising our profile and gathering support. Much later, as part of a genuine attempt to rescue a project I'd sunk my heart and soul into, I alluded to some (and only some) of the very serious problems in its legal, financial and general management.

Although I stand by what I wrote, I don't want people judging me now on the basis of it. You can still find out about the Exeter Studios Project here. It's also featured in an article on artist-led activity and an article about blogging, both by Jane Watt. I'm also very happy to talk in person about my experiences - please contact me via my website.

The lure of endurance

Forced Entertainment Quizoola!

A live webcast of two performers sitting side by side, asking and answering a series of questions, proved to be compulsive viewing over the weekend. I was watching Forced Entertainment's 24-hour performance Quizoola!  Spanning comedy double-act, trivia quiz, psychoanalytic exchange, philosophical investigation and much more besides, this bizarre Q&A shifted mood minute-by-minute from friendly, flirty teasing to hostile, sinister interrogation - with moments of sadness, exhaustion and vagueness in between.

It was brilliant stuff but it made me wonder what is it about endurance that we find so attractive in a work? Epic durational events seem more and more common in the arts, especially in live art (see Marina Abramovich for one extreme example), but are also evident in other cultural spheres (from telethons to ultra marathons).

Are they a reaction against the increasing short attention span we seem prepared to offer any activity? A reflection of the relentlessness we feel in our own everyday lives? Perhaps they're a sign of a decadent society, so pampered we demand pain and exhaustion as entertainment? Or do they grow from the often misguided notion that if something's worth doing it's worth doing even more of? 

I don't know the answers, but it seems only appropriate that Quizoola! should raise so many questions.

Quizoola! took place in The Pit, Barbican as part of SPILL Festival of Performance, 11.59pm 12 April - 11.59pm 13 April 2013.