Drawing on a known framework to project its practice into the public space, this workshop facilitates the personal act of writing into public performance, making the work of artists visible.
2:00-4:00pm Saturday 11 March 2017
Meet at Performance Arcade lawn, Wellington waterfront behind Te Papa and beyond
What does performing writing look like? How is it embodied? What does it tell us about performance? What does it tell us about writing?
In the public space, we read thousands of words every day – words that guide us or alert us or try to sell us things. Writing in public, however, seems less common to us; as writers we prefer solitary, comfortable spaces that are highly idiosyncratic and private.
Performing the act of writing in a public space is something we rarely consider consciously – and yet, it’s something that many of us do every day. The open-plan workspace orients the body toward a screen that draws the facial expression away from the circulation space. The mobile device draws the expression downward, allowing writing to be performed in social spaces or in transit while the body performs its daily routines. In each case, the public space surrounding the writing body takes on an anonymised character; an unremarkable public space of seemingly inert bodies in relation to one another.
In this workshop, we create a performance of scale: a critical mass of bodies, solitary or collaborative, writing in the public space. In doing so, we perform a public space through the act of writing. Afterwards, we come together to reflect on how writing (in) the public space is possible. Let’s get the words out on the street.
