Restock Rethink Reflect
Restock, Rethink, Reflect is a Live Art Development Agency programme of artistic and professional development initiatives for artists whose practices explore and question notions of cultural identity, and who are working, or interested in working, in Live Art and related performance based practices.
Live Art offers new languages to play with the cultural and social influences that inform us, to articulate new forms of representation and to create new cultural landscapes. Restock, Rethink, Reflect reflects this fluidity by using a number of different forms to explore and expose debate and practice in these areas.
Restock, Rethink, Reflect projects include:
Lore and Other Convergences offered fifteen UK practitioners the opportunity to work alongside internationally renowned artist Janine Antoni, exploring the intersection between process and product through the creation of a 25m rope made of significant personal materials. The workshop was accompanied by a series of talks and a public sharing of outcomes at inIVA. Documentation of these events can be viewed in the Agency's Study Room.
Open Nights are an innovative and exciting series of informal events designed to stimulate debate and a sense of community among artists who are questioning cultural identity through live and interdisciplinary practices. Open Nights so far have included presentations and events by George Chakravarthi, Yara El-Sherbini, Sonia Boyce, Oreet Ashery, David A Bailey, Manick Govinda, Ali Zaidi and Janine Antoni. Events take place at a variety of different London venues and each has a unique structure that encourages new ways of talking, engaging and asking questions. Open Nights are curated by Barby Asante and produced by Rajni Shah. To find out more please drop us a line at on@thisisLiveArt.co.uk or visit www.myspace.com/opennights.
Documenting Live! is a publication project developed in collaboration with curator David A Bailey to be published in Spring 2008. The project is a response to the challenges of documenting Live Art and particularly the work of artists from culturally diverse backgrounds. The aims of the project are to create a new print and DVD resource that represents and illustrates the work of key artists, places Live Art practices informed by questions of cultural identity within critical and historical frameworks, and looks to the future.
The publication includes an illustrated essay on performance and the racialised body in Live Art practices in the UK by David A Bailey; a DVD containing video excerpts from performance based works along with commissioned artists' commentaries; and a series of specially commissioned artists' postcards. These three elements will be packaged together and disseminated to libraries and institutions in the UK and internationally as well as distributed through Unbound. Contributing artists are David Medalla, Sonia Boyce, Ansuman Biswas, Malika Booker, Ali Zaidi, Keith Khan, Barby Asante, George Chakravarthi, Robin Deacon, Yara El-Sherbini, Harold Offeh, Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa, Harminder Singh Judge.
Documentation of all the Restock, Rethink, Reflect events is available in various forms in the Study Room.
Restock, Rethink, Reflect is funded by Arts Council England and is produced by Rajni Shah for the Live Art Development Agency.
