Performatorium - Day 3

THE REMAINS OF MEMORY BY MARILYN ARSEM

Marilyn Arsem’s The Remains of Memory was a performance for one participant at a time. Set up directly in front of the main window at Dunlop Gallery, Arsem sat at a table working at solving a figural jigsaw puzzle. Next to her on the table, pointed towards an empty chair, sat a book of calendar pages. As each audience member sat with the Arsem, the artist worked on the puzzle while discussing fear of loss about memory and relative understanding of time. 

Being invited to speak quietly and intimately about such vulnerable ideas as the artist's personal fear of memory loss due to her experience mother's disease, despite existing within a public fishbowl, quickly shrunk the space. It was surprising how quiet the moment became. The artist invited the participant's own perceptions on memory, and conversation turned to a question -- can you remember what you were doing on any given day if you close your eyes and randomly point to a day in the calendar book? Though my blind finger happened upon my own birthday in the year 2005, I could not recall a single part of the day or any surrounding events. 

Existing in this paradoxically absurd yet comfortable situation felt like visiting one's own unconscious. Just as the performance was made granular through its parameters of slow participation and experience, so became the participants’ and artist’s conception of memory, time, and what makes a life.

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AFTER HOURS BY JES SACHSE

After Hours by Jes Sachse was not necessarily intended to be a solo performance, but in the end the audience did not participate with the artist’s movement up and down the dual escalator system in the closed library. Straddling labour and play, Sachse performed negotiations of their body around the architecture of the library by playing with and highlighting the components of that space that often go unnoticed, thereby drawing attention to the many ways the barriers to disability in public areas are a constant negotiation.

Sachse wore street clothes for this performance to signify the reality and legibility of poverty, disability, and safety; a particularly bold choice considering the vulnerability of not having a costume or uniform to protect and state belonging. A soundtrack of music including the Beach Boys, replete with fancy footwork with tap shoes and clacking with tap-modified work gloves gave the piece a sense of joy.

Considering the changed meaning of a public space when it is closed and hosting an arts event, it would have been interesting to see how this performance might have played out, especially in terms of “audience” participation, had it been enacted during the library’s open hours amongst a non-arts public who were themselves navigating public space in their everyday.

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NSA BY MIKIKI

For Mikiki’s performance of NSA, the artist has stated that the work is specifically made for their community of other queer people and other queer people living with HIV. This creates an invisible line of intention, language, and legibility for many in the general festival audience; you can bear witness but this is not specifically a conversation for you. NSA is a performance that posits a generative symbiosis of body and disease; queering the concepts of a taboo body, creating visibility, and considering the possibilities of social change inherent in what is considered a fuck-up.

Taking place in stages separated by the timed ding of a phone alarm, Mikiki enacts phases in a space that is like a stage, separate from the audience. First, taping together green cabbages with green painters tape, squishing in as many as possible, overcrowding the squeaking, cracking, wonky pyramid and protecting them first with the binding and then, after semi-undressing, with their own body, laying over top and covering them like a nest. Vulnerable, adjusting, moving to accommodate the lumps, until the bell, reminiscent of a childhood book of tape moving the narrative forward, dings to signal the move to the zip-top plastic baggies laid out in rows on a tilted platform next to jars of fermented cabbage. Bell dings, Mikiki turns away from the audience, puts a squeaky stretchy green tourniquet around their arm, draws blood, then pours the vial into a dropper. Bell dings, Mikiki administers the dropper of blood to their own eyes, then stands in a suspended state, arms slightly away from body, kind of swaying in a dazed way. Bell dings, Mikiki moves into action, opening the jars and messily shoving them into the plastic bags. These movements continue through encasing books with green tape spines into the plastic bags, reapplying blood to the eyes and standing stunned, slowly twisting and folding a green dress onto the bags, applying more blood and, with camera in hand, shrugging and gently flailing while clicking the shutter.

At this point, the performance wall breaks and Mikiki asks someone in the audience to find a link to a video in their email. While this goes on, the artist talks to the audience through a microphone, trailing out a list of controversial thoughts as the bell dings in between, signalling time to change topics. For instance, not having a uterus and feeling frustrated that queer and politicized women make decisions to have their own genetic kids, not understanding why we have taken the conversation of overpopulation off the table as an environmental issue and, making a concession, it should only be black and indigenous women having kids. Other short monologues included thoughts about pedophilia, abortion and suicide, the #metoo movement. The rambling exploration was, frustratingly, one of the most impactful moments of the festival. Initially infuriating, Mikiki’s taboo list of thoughts draws out issues that, while problematic, could be destructive if not discussed. By making themself a target for discomfort, is there a space created for a recognition of the need for sitting within disquiet in order to discuss ethics? Cultural producers are not necessarily ethicists but we are in a time when very complex ideas are becoming more divisive. Does it matter who brings these issues to light, if they are being a provocateur with purpose or just an asshole, if it is productive?



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