The University of Birmingham's Edgbaston campus has just undergone (probably) the most dramatic transformation in a generation. In an abitious redevelopment, the centre of campus has been opened up and landscaped, creating a welcoming and multi-functional Green Heart. To mark the occasion, the university will celebrate the Green Heart Festival., a year-long programme of activities following the seasonal themes of celebration, change, illumination, and hope. As part of this scheme, and thanks to support from the Sir Barry Jackson Fund, Dr. Pablo Pakula has curated Live Art for the Green Heart, a pedagogical project focusing on live art practices.
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LIVE ART FOR THE GREEN HEART #1 - Celebration
11th, 14th, 17th June 2019 Radage▽ Hardaker is the close and messy collaboration between Alicia Radage and Ro Hardaker. Their performance and curatorial practice regards space, place and the body’s relation to objects within a framework of queer resistance and queer utopias. Together and separately they have shown work throughout the UK and internationally at SPILL (UK), TATE Modern (UK), Venice International Performance Art Week (IT), CuerpAs3 Feminist Performance Festival (CL), Queer Performatorium (CA), SUPERMARKET Independent art fair (Sweden) and Dublin Fringe (RI). Their workshop will hold the theme a Celebration of Vitality, Growths, Deaths and Excesses. Participants will explore realisations and manifestations of their bodily processes, through working with an excess of renewable material. The work made together will be messy, intimate, raw and unfinished. View the workshop and intervention images here. |
LIVE ART FOR THE GREEN HEART #2 - Change
4th-10th November 2019 Demi Nandhra is a neurodiverse artist based in Birmingham. She makes and curates both solo & collaborative performances, live art, theatre & sociopolitical enquiries with a focus on Mental Health, Care, Trauma & Oppression. “I make work for liberation; for myself & others to begin to feel at home in our body in ANY context.” Partners and commissions include: LADA, Contact, Buzzcut Festival, Fierce Festival, Battersea Arts Centre, mac Birmingham, REP, Normal? Festival, Bedlam Mental Health Festival and Sophiensaele. The space has transformed. Spaces can be changed. Spaces can be altered. Spaces can be transformed… But what about the politics of a space, can those change? Is that he case here? Together we will interrogate the conventions and rules of public space, the policing of certain bodies, and the ultimate act of public disruption: resting |
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LIVE ART FOR THE GREEN HEART #3 - Illumination
17th-23rd February 2020 Aleks Wojtulevic has been a live artist for over 10 years. His practice is based in the physicality of his body, and how it can he can used this to his best advantage. His work explores society's role in 'understanding' and 'acceptance', aiming to gain a better understanding of the societal pressures that are faced daily. Recently, he has been exploring ways of creating performances and full installations that give a full-body experience of art, while questioning the very fabric of what art is, and why we have a need it. Aleks is one of the founders and directors of Home For Waifs And Strays, and part of performance duo KAKE. In tese roles Aleks works with artists as collaborator and mentor. He's also a contemporary dancer and a lighting designer. The workshop will engage with nature. Aiming to understand the connection to the physical space, it will explore ways of turning the whole area into a reactive-performance, which responds to what’s happening in the surroundings. There will be opportunities to develop solo work, and participants will explore how these separate pieces can become a group show. The work will likely be physical and durational in nature. |
LIVE ART FOR THE GREEN HEART #4 - Hope
11th-17th May 2020 Elena Poka was born in Athens and works across live art, theatre, and visual arts. She has participated in international exhibitions and her works belong to private collections and museums. Poka is interested in unfolding and reinventing myth, in all its forms. She seeks to metaphorically walk the lines between life and death; most recently in the guise of Persephone. Her intention, during these explorations is to interrupt the rhythms of daily life and cause audiences, both unwitting and predetermined, to question their positions within these margins. Participants will be taken on an inner journey, discovering the main elements from which the “esoteric need” to make performance emanates. Focusing on each individual, we will redefine notions like: language, space, movement, sound, story, myth, dressing, building and rhythm. Participants will get the chance to bring their own concepts and ideas. Together we will create an play with materials, costumes, words and sound. We will also compare outdoor and indoor live art, as well as the interaction with the audience within these different performative spaces. |
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