Patrick Staff’s ‘Magic, Science, Technique and Willingness’ (2012-)
Saturday 23 March 2013, 2.30pm
Performed by Laura Evans
‘Magic, Science, Technique and Willingness’ (2012-) is a promenade performance by Patrick Staff with actor Laura Evans. Originally presented at the 2012 Whitstable Biennale commissioned by The Island, it utilises an adapted monologue from the 1969 film ‘Classe De Lutte’ by the French factory workers’ cinema collective Les Groupes Medvedkines de Besancon, focusing on an interview with one of the workers in which she discusses her relationship with culture. Tying in an anecdotal account of Sylvette, the portrait of a young woman with the ponytail painted by Pablo Picasso, the performance continues Staff’s engagement with the ethics and politics of working with radical historical documents and the intersection and representations of relationships between art, protest and work. Whilst in Whitstable the perfomance followed a route that circled the town’s aggregate factory, in Bournville the performance will begin in the gallery, travelling through the art school and onto the grounds of the Cadbury factory before returning to the gallery.
Laura Evans is an actor based in Manchester, originally from Hull. She has worked at the National Theatre Studio, Old Vic Tunnels and Hull Truck Theatre and previously with Patrick Staff on Performance, Growth, Forecasts (2011).
Free admission
International Project Space
School of Art Bournville
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
Maple Road, Birmingham, B30 2AA
www.internationalprojectspace.org
