Reading and Writing the Performance Magazine Archive

Join the editors of Something Other (Mary Paterson, Maddy Costa & Diana Damian Martin) for a collaborative workshop inspired by the newly digitised archive of Performance Magazine. Using Performance Magazine as our starting point we ask: how can we read and write the archive for all of our futures?

About the project

LADA is launching a new online archive of Performance Magazine. Published between 1979 and 1992 the magazine documents an extraordinary period in the development of art in the UK. Significantly, in a pre-internet era, the magazine was instrumental in shaping the field of practice now widely referred to as Live Art. By creating a critical context and discourse the magazine provided a vital platform for wider awareness of new approaches to the making and experience of art. LADA is very pleased to be working with the original editor, Rob La Frenais, to develop the project which will reflect on this important archive and look at the contribution it has made.

LADA's Study Room houses the complete collection of Performance Magazine.

A new online archive, artist commissions and a film

• At the heart of the project will be a new website featuring the first digital archive of the magazine.
• ​A new film by Hugo Glendinning and Alex Eisenberg mapping the magazine’s history and legacy.
• Commissioned features by Anne Bean, Hester Reeve, Lynn MacRitchie, Claire MacDonald and Nahum Mantra which respond to the archive and the period when the magazine was published. These have been conceived both for live and online space. They will be activated by the project launch events in Hull and London.

Copyright Notice

All of the back issues of Performance Magazine are being made freely available to view online as part of this project. This has been done with the permission of the surviving Editors of the magazine, Rob La Frenais and Gray Watson. The copyright for articles, other texts and photographs in the magazine remains with Performance Magazine and/or the original creators, in accordance with the original copyright of each issue.

If you have any queries about the copyright or the way that the issues have been reproduced please contact LADA.

Performance Magazine is supported using public funding by Arts Council England