Shuo Hua/Speech

• Main Authors: Charnley, Clare, Yang, Shu
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: W100 Fine Art; W990 Creative Arts and Design not elsewhere classified; Françoise; Kivimaa; Iceland
• Online Access: https://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/1193/

‘Speech’ attempts to devise a new model for collaborative art production in, and for, a foreign context and in situations where relations of power and wealth are unequal. It acknowledges specific challenges posed by collaboration in situations where there are radical differences in collaborators’ experience and intentions; difference is not homogenised, but utilised. Within Speech performances, a situation of unstable and mutual vulnerability is opened up and harnessed as a creative force. The work highlights issues of cultural ignorance, using aggression and humour as tools of enquiry, thus opening the audience to self-reflexive change. The initial performance was in collaboration with Katrin Kivimaa, currently acting Professor of Art History, The Art Academy, Estonia, and published extensively. Speech became an evolving series of performances with different collaborators. It raises questions that are worked through in discussions with audiences and fed into subsequent performances. Collaborators and venues; Guillermo Santamarina: Ex Teressa Arte Actual, Muestra Internacional de Performance, Mexico City 10/07/2003 Shu Yang (high-profile artist/curator): Transborder Language, Beijing 03.05.2004 Anat Pick: Performance Art Platform, Tel Aviv 15.09.2004 and 17.09.2004 (also public lectures on same dates) Françoise Vincent (Venice Bienalle 2007): Galerie EOF, Paris 14.04.2005 Bryndís Ragnarsdóttir: Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland 17.06.2005 Mererid Hopwood (foremost Welsh poet): The National Eisteddfod, Wales 31.7.2005 Tanja Frank: Casino Forum D’art Contemporain, Luxembourg 20.1.2006 Ronni Ahmed: Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, Dhaka Bangladesh 22.02.2007. Other outcomes; video screenings: Parnu Videofest Estonia 02.05.04, Le French Mai Festival, Hong Kong 19/05/07. Video installation, Living Art Museum, Iceland 17/06/2005-17/07/200 Book; So Communication…Translating Each Others' Word. Devised by Charnley. Edited Charnley and Kivimaa. Publisher: Estonian Academy of Art 2007 ISBN 978-9985-9841-0-9. Contains images and texts by an international selection of academics, critics, visual artists, photographers and writers developing themes drawn from the Speech performances.