Edge of an Era: Workshop (London)

Edge of an Era is a project revisiting a specific series of seminal performance art events from the late 1980s, through artistic commissions, archival digitisation, and a public event celebrating the 30th anniversary of EDGE88.

As part of this project we are hosting two free workshops – one at Allenheads Contemporary Arts in Northumberland, the location of The Last Weekend (1989), and one in LADA’s Study Room in London. Participants are welcome to attend either or both workshops.

The workshops will be lead by Helena Goldwater and Alex Eisenberg and are aimed at artists, curators and researchers and will:

• Explore approaches to working with the archival materials from some key 1980s performance events.
• Discuss the historicisation of Performance Art and Live Art.
• Consider parallels between  the 1980s and current socio-political issues.

Background to the project

In the late 1980s, Performance Magazine (1979-1992) started presenting some of the first site specific performance art events in the UK, including Art in Danger, At the Edge and Last Sweat of Youth at the Diorama and Air Gallery. This culminated in EDGE 88, one of London’s first site-specific performance/installation festivals which was attended by artists such as Helena Goldwater, who was at the start of her career. Thirty years later, Helena Goldwater and Rob La Frenais, (former editor of Performance Magazine and Director of EDGE 88) in collaboration with LADA, are revisiting this and other 1980s performance art events, connecting influential artists from the 1980s with current generations.

If you want to read more about the history and context of the project we have created a short document called ‘Edge of an Era, Revisiting a hidden village of art from the 80s’.

Download PDF

Any further questions please contact [email protected]

This project is curated by Helena Goldwater and Rob La Frenais, Alex Eisenberg and Live Art Development Agency.

In partnership with ArtsAdmin and Central Saint Martins, University of London.

This project is supported using public funding by Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants and made possible through the Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant from Art Fund.