Rhiannon Armstrong is the recipient of the 2019 Adrian Howells Award

Rihannon Armstrong is the recipient of the 2019 Adrian Howells Award for Intimate Performance.

Rhiannon is an interdisciplinary artist with over a decade of experience making works with empathy, interaction, and dialogue at their core, often with unfiltered audiences in mind. Rhiannon makes work under the lifelong series title Instructions for Empathetic Living. That work often involves one-to-one and intimate encounters, whether it’s live work in public settings (Public Selfcare System and Can I Help You?), or part of web-based and audio pieces (The Slow GIF Movement and The International Archive of Things Left Unsaid).  

“Receiving The Adrian Howells Award is providing me with the inspiration and opportunity to build a creative process where I will for the first time engage explicitly with my autobiography as a creative force. I hope to bring this process (which I think of as a “live reckoning”) together with other ongoing explorations such as witnessing intimacy in public space, touch as a form of listening, and the research and performance of lullabies that express a wish to harm. I intend to explore the creation of an immersive performance environment where vulnerability and pain can co-exist with the embodied experiences of safety, rhythm and intimacy that are needed in trauma recovery.” Rhiannon Armstrong.

The Adrian Howells Award for Intimate Performance is an opportunity for a UK based artist to develop and present an early staging of a new performance-based project in Glasgow and London. The Award aims to celebrate the intimate work that Adrian pioneered and excelled at, as well as providing an opportunity to explore new territories in the field of one to one and intimate performance. The Award is chosen through open call.