First week back after the Easter holidays and Faga has found a video artist along with 6 boys who have agreed to take part in the performance. With timetables firmly in place for the boys end of year exams, their time is precious and this does pose a problem for us working within the school curriculum. The video artist has suggested that we capture each student's action individually and video one boy at a time chopping onions; this process will allow for a more intensely controlled portrait to appear in the final edit of the video. I feel a pang of disappointment as to missing out on the live event and experience of working with a larger group, to watch boys chop and cry in unison together.
Thinking about the process of collaboration and artists working together, and the importance of generating ideas and processes, this is what I enjoy about collaborating. A special energy grows out of this and vitalises the collaborative relationship and experience. This collaboration came about because I found a way of continuing to ask questions important to me as an artist within my place of work.
This question of what is spiritual and why should it be important to artists is what I struggle with. Kandinsky wrote about 'feelings' as being the material expression of the soul, and described 'thought' as a product of the spirit. So are emotions the only tangible measure of expressions of 'thought' and 'feeling'? Reflecting on this question I was reminded of works by performance artists such as Franko B, Kira O'Reilly and others that emit bodily fluids during their performances. As a result of a childhood experience I confess that I have never been able to to see any of the aforementioned artists perform in the flesh (as it were), however having spent many hours reading about these artists in the study rooms at the Live Art Development Agency and online, I started to challenge my fascination for reading about the performances but not being able to see the live performances for myself. I know I'm not alone and it really is a case that I cannot bare to see the blood spill, but this performed ritual of artists exposing themselves viscerally got me chewing over Kandinsky's idea of the 'inner life' in terms of the spiritual. What is a 'true' or 'real' expression of the artist's inner life and what could it look like? Must the spiritual mean that which is 'unseen'?
Artists met during half term to consider a format of preparation and both agreed that the song by the Cure, 'boys don't cry' should feature somewhere within this performance. A list was drawn up of things to do and one of the first tasks was to track down 6 students who were up for a bit of onion chopping and not averse to the spilling of tears! Faga in her role as Trainee/Teacher/Artist would raise up some parent permission slips to be sent home to the boys who hopefully would agree to take part in our performance/art educational video. We also needed a third collaborator who would video our performance. Questions were already surfacing as to what to tell the boys beforehand so as not to influence their performances whilst chopping onions; should this be an art or food tech experiment? Also, at what time during the school day do we conduct our performance so as not to be too disruptive to the boys' learning; for myself in the role of Teaching Assistant at this North London school, it is less easy for me to be released from school timetable during a spring/summer term, as I am needed to support students as a scribe or reader whilst they are sitting important exams.
For our purposes in this performance small onions will prove the best, because they are strong in aroma and will hopefully emit a powerful vapour to tickle the tear ducts. A glass chopping board will produce a sharper and more uniform noise as we perceive the boys chopping in unison. Perhaps we will choreograph a sequence to give the boys a format to follow but try not to spoil the spontanaity of their actions. The knives will be borrowed from the food tech department and all safety checks and procedures will be put in place and demonstrated. The question of what to do with the onions after they have been chopped is raised and whilst Onion Soup is the obvious we are not sure whether school kitchens do their own cooking anymore.
For Faga this collaboration develops out of her own interests concerning emotions and how they are explored within the educational system; how can one use colour to express feeling in art – what colours depict a feeling or emotion? How can emotions be painted? We discussed artists who used emotion in their work like Kandinsky, Munch, Bacon and Rothko amongst others. Faga has started to work through a piece already with a student in year 11 looking at emotions in facial expressions through sculptures in clay.
For myself this performance develops out of research I have been making during the last couple of years and relates to Kandinsky's book 'Concerning the spiritual in art'. In his wildly prophetic publication from the early 20th century, and amongst his prescriptives on colour and form, are Kandinsky's thoughts concerning emotions; he believed that art had the power to transform the 'inner life'.
