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(im)possible performances: an introduction▲▼▲

Impossibility is a sliding scale somedays it feels impossible to get out of bed On others we are pleasantly surprised to reach beyond our own expectations (let alone what others expect of us) Wether that is finding the energy to lift a corner of curtain to peek up at a tiny patch of sky or scaling a peak to gaze down upon the clouds 

 

Each of the 16 artists/ writers invited to take part in the project have leant into or away from the idea of impossibility in a different way; they have used different mediums to share experiences and have of course needed to rely on what is possible and practical in order to realise their works The Covid-19 pandemic made sharing live performance art practices a physical impossibility but these works transcend the immediate impossibilities of living in a global pandemic They explore the layers upon layers of everyday impossibilities that we still encounter and will remain present once we ‘return to normal’

 

 

‘Gesture signals a refusal of a certain kind of finitude’ José Esteban Muñoz Cruising Utopia

The purpose (if there is to be one at all) to these works is not to define nor to replace the experience of live performance work nor do they function as documentation They aim to be another method for communicating experiences as ephemera as gestures as an exploration of materials and of the erotic ('A measure between our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings' Audre Lorde Your Silence Will Not Protect You)

This project came from a simple yet impossible desire; the desire to share experiences when it felt impossible to do so and then (for me at least) grew into the realisation that it always feels impossible to do so because there is no language to describe the multifarious experiences of the body especially when those bodies are othered

                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                             Helen Davison, 15 March 2021

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