My Mother Worked in A Factory

On the evening  Monday January 26, 2009 I debated whether I should go home and call my parents before they got in bed or whether I should stay at school and attend "My Mother Worked in A Factory". The show was curated by Genevieve Cloutier and included performances by Francisco-Fernando Granados and The Cruz Brothers. Because I have working and personal relationships with each of these artists, I decided to skip out on the phone call to my parents to support my friends at the show. 

The Cruz Brother's performance "waiting" began when the brothers sat on the floor facing one another. A hand quilted blanket was placed at their sides. Patrick held a microphone with a live feed in front of Francis's mouth as he let out a whimper, which eventually turned into a cry.  When Francis' crying died out, Patrick proceeded to put down the microphone, cover his brother with the blanket as he carried his brother outside of the room. 

In relationship to the performance, Francis Cruz states: 

"desperation, comfort, vulnerability, and assurance were the fundamental elements that arose from our conversation". 

The roles in the performance were delegated very strategically. While Francis'  expressed desperation and vulnerability, Patrick supported this action with gestures of comfort and assurance.  While the microphone was used to amplify the cry, the blanket was used to conceal or shield the performer.

 In a show that I curated last year at VIVO, together they explored the power dynamic of brotherhood through a series of gestures towards one another.  The performance came to climax as the brothers spat on one another's war painted faces. Conversely, "waiting" seems to explore a dynamic that is closer to one of  child and motherhood.  Francis  seemed to be in the role of the child as he expressed his vulnerability, while Patrick was in the role of the mother while supporting Francis with loving detachment. 

Rebecca Belmore: Community Performance Art

Rebecca Belmore is a Vancouver -based, Canadian performance artists. In 1991, 1992, and 1996 Belmore traveled across canada with her  community based artwork "Ayem-ee-aawach Ooma-mowan: Speaking to the Mother". She created this work in response to the early 1990's "Oka Crisis", when Mohawk people protested to maintain their territory in Kanesatake.  "Speaking to Their Mother" invited members of the First Nations community to speak directly to the land through a giant megaphone. 

I responded to this work because it gives the members of community an opportunity to speak their voices while encouraging the alternation of leadership. Belmore is concerned with expressing "protest through poetic action".  She is recognized both nationally and internationally as a performance, sculpture/installation and new media artists interested in history, place and identity.  Since the late 1980's Belmore has produced a large body of work exploring such issues.  In 2005 Belmore represented Canada at the Venice Biennale with her video installation "Fountain". 

http://www.rebeccabelmore.com/home.html

Jamie Hilder: Durational Performance Artist

The Miracle Mile was a year long performance by Vancouver based artist Jamie Hilder. Hilder trained for a full year to run a mile in 4 minutes. He documented himself and his progress by daily photographs and journal entries.  His entries detail his exercise routine, diet, what music he was listening to while training, as well as his personal thoughts. Each entry was accompanied by a picture showing the gradual physical changes in his body while training. 

The exhibition was installed in the Charles H Scott Gallery.  I was fortunate enough to visit the exhibition while it was running. I was impressed by the degree to which his durational performance was documented.  In addition to the year's worth of journal entries posted all over gallery the walls, he also incorporated time based documentation. This documentation included a time lapse of his daily portraits, videos of him training, and his attempt at the 4 minute mile on the last day.  I was fascinated by the artists discipline to train rigorously for an entire year. The Miracle Mile extends art into the everyday ritual and documents human determination and ability to make change through a change in habits. 

Hilder is an emerging contemporary artist as well as a critic and poet. He has a background in English and is currently pursuing his PhD at UBC. His past work deals with navigations through urban and suburban environments.  This past summer he engaged in a collaboration with Brady Cranfield (a sound instructor at Emily Carr) in the Artspeak exhibition "Island Developments: Utopia's Adrift", which examines the utopian/disutopian pardox.

Sophia Calle: Relational Artist/ Photo Conceptualist

Shadow began when Calle moved back to Paris and became fascinated by people she saw walking around in the street. She began to wonder what they were doing when they were not at work and decided to follow them.  Calle would choose to follow someone in particular by chance.  Eventually she started taking pictures and notes for herself. She once followed one of her subjects all the way to Venice. She began taking pictures of him and what he was doing, and where he was going. She would wait for him at his hotel, follow him until she lost him and then find him again. She would follow her subjects until she decided to stop and find some else to follow and the relationship would end. 

Although Calle is a photo conceptualist, and I will argue that she is also a relational performance artist because of the individual relationship that she builds with her subjects through the camera. Calle Documents her and subject's "joint journey" that they go on together.  She is able to rediscover a place through her subject. A portrait of the subjects rituals emerge through her photographs and notes. 

Later Calle decided to flip the camera on herself in her series Detective after she asked her mother to hire a detective to spy on her and take pictures. Later she would compare her own notes of what she was doing and how she was feeling with the notes of the detective. From this a "double portrait" emerges. 

Calle began her work in the 70's and continues to produce work up through the present.  More recently she represented France at the 2007 Venice Biennale with her work "Take Care of Your Self". 

Shadow Puppet Performances Group 4

Group 4's performance was an improvised choreography between performers. 

The piece relied on gestures and interactions between the performers and featured a plexiglas structure that had the effect of shrinking the appearance of one of the performers. The piece was performed to a techno beat of a keyboard which set the pace and rhythm of the performance.

The performance began with the male performer dancing into the frame and ripping paper off the plexiglas structure to reveal the shrunken female character that appeared to be tapped in a box. The mass of the performance consisted of a power and control relationship between the characters. The male figure seemed to dominate and torture the female figure through violent gestures including eating her head. The second time the piece was performed without music, the musician added to the performance by licking the face of the female with the other male character. Later the two male character engaged in a fight. 

I enjoyed this performance because it was very playful in nature. The power dynamic between the the characters engaged the audience through dark humor.  Although many of the transitions seemed spontaneous, I felt that the performers did a good job staying in character by pacing their movements to the music.  I felt that the piece could be interpreted from a feminist point of view because of the interplay between genders. 

Shadow Puppet Performances Group 3

Group Two's performance consisted of a role-play dynamic between a pig, and a cop, and a two head monster. 

The performance began with the unfolding of a pig mask into the life of the puppet show. The show consisted of a series of focused gestures between characters. The cop figure's performance included removing his shirt and coming into a reclining backbend. Additionally, the cop lets of out a muffled cry into a microphone. Later, he turns into a two headed monster that engages in a dialogue with the pig through subtle implied eye contact. The entire piece was performed to live drumming music. The space in between scenes was signified with a head bending forward in front of the light of the projector. The performances was concluded by the joint humming of the group. 

Group Two's performance engaged the audience through it's simplicity. They used a limited amount of props and relied most heavily on the characterization and gestures of the performers cued by music. I felt that the use of sound and music was particularly strong in this piece. The sounds of the performers such as the yell and the collective humming set a very surrealist tone to the piece that had the impact of engaging the viewer more strongly. 

Shadow Puppet Performances Group 2 (My Group)

Shadow Puppet Performances Group 1

Group one's shadow puppet play was a surrealist dream sequence about a creatures night journey.

 The sequence begins with the creature crawling out of the mouth of a giant face. The use of scale in this opening image is particularly thoughtful. The creature continues to explore various natural landscapes such as mountainous terrain, bodies of water, and tall blades of foliage. The journey takes places against various colorful backdrops. The sequence ends with the creature crawling back into the mouth of the giant sleeping head. 

Group One Effectively took the class on the journey with their mystical creature. They held the audiences attention through the creative use of the live body, puppet,  props and colorful backdrops.  The combination of these elements where placed to create an image of depth with background, middle ground and foreground. The structure of the play was generally y effective however, I did feel that there could have been more diversity in the action of the puppet in the middle section.  However, overall the piece was creative, engaging and satisfying.