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'.
