A short clip of the performance of ‘Noise Bodies’. Based on Schneemann’s instructions, I recorded myself relaying the instructions which played through the PA at OTO.
Myself and the performers wore a head lamp each and created our own wearable objects – a mix of discarded objects and personal items. We ‘played’ the objects through interactions, movement, using cable wire as ‘wands’ as instructed by Carolee.
Rachel Churner is the director of the Carolee Schneemann Foundation. She is also an art critic and editor, whose writings have appeared in Artforum and October magazine, among other publications. She was a recipient of The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant in 2018 and was the editor of Hans Haacke (MIT Press, 2015), two volumes of writings by film historian Annette Michelson (MIT Press, 2017 and 2020), and Yvonne Rainer: Revisions (no place press, 2020), as well as books and exhibition catalogues on Jaime Davidovich, James Ensor, and Charlotte Posenenske. She owned and operated Churner and Churner, a contemporary art gallery in New York, from 2011–2014. Churner holds degrees in Art History from Stanford University and Columbia University and currently teaches in the Department of Visual Studies at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at the New School.
Cathy Wade is an artist and writer who investigates how practice can be created and distributed in collaborative partnerships and through the creation of commons. Their work seeks to understand the experience of contemporary conditions through exchange with others. They are course leader for MA in Arts Education Practices at BCU; and are currently curating new work with artist Hannah Sawtell at Vivid Projects alongside facilitating Black Hole Club, Vivid Projects’ artist development programme.
Lotte Johnson is a curator at Barbican Art Gallery, London, where she is curating the forthcoming retrospective Carolee Schneemann: Body Politics, opening in September 2022. Her work as a curator, writer and art historian focuses on interdisciplinary artistic expressions, feminist practices and transcultural dialogues, with a particular interest in performance. At the Barbican, she has curated solo artist commissions by Toyin Ojih Odutola (2020), Jamila Johnson-Small (2019), Yto Barrada (2018) and Bedwyr Williams (2016) and contributed to a number of major exhibitions, including Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art (2019), Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017) and The World of Charles and Ray Eames (2015), editing and authoring publications for many of these projects. She previously worked at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, contributing to exhibitions focused on Jean Dubuffet, Ellen Gallagher, Paul Gauguin, Jasper Johns and Dieter Roth.
As part of the upcoming performances of ‘Noise Bodies’ and ‘Saxony’, myself and musicians Fred Fuller, Mark Abbott and Death Knell have explored concepts and techniques for these pieces. ‘Saxony’ will be performed on piano, bass guitar, electric guitar and electronics.
Glaswegian musician, Fergus Lawrie of cult band Urusei Yatsura and London-based musician, Dee Sada come together as Paper Birch to share their mutual feelings of despair, fragility and hope in this collection of nine songs. The album, MORNINGHAIRWATER was written under lockdown between May and June 2020 as a result of the fervent correspondence of lyrics, ideas and sounds.
The album will be released in August on TAKUROKU, the new digital label from underground arts venue, Cafe OTO.
There will be a preview of 3 tracks and live interview with the band on Saturday July 11th on the Hello Goodbye show on Resonance FM.
Track listing: Summer Daze Love For The Things Yr Not Elegy (As We Mourn) Curse Us I Don’t Know You Hide Blue Heartbreak Cemetery Moon Fallen
Artist: Paper Birch Title: MORNINGHAIRWATER Label: TAKUROKU Release Date: August 2020 (digital)
A still from Peter Davis’ 1965 insightful documentary, Immigrants. The film is a fascinating examination of post-war migrant communities in Britain. Through a series of interviews with immigrants who had recently moved to the UK, we’re given insights into the role race and immigration played in mid-1960s British society.
I have worked with Peter on a few events at Café OTO as he has made a number of documentaries on RD Laing and he was a speaker at our Dialectics of Liberation Reconvened event in 2016.
We will be screening the film at our Stuart Hall event at Café OTO in October.
As a seminal feminist artist, Carolee does not need much of an introduction. I recently read her essay about her experience at the Dialectics of Liberation conference in her book, More Than Meat Joy. She performed a happening at the end of the two week conference and there was also the UK premier of her film, Fuses.
Carolee was one of the few female voices at the conference, the other being IKON’s editor, Susan Sherman. I am intrigued by the lack of female visibility at the Dialectics of Liberation. It was an occasion where race was given a platform (with the inclusion of Stokely Carmichael) however women remained on the fringes. My research will hopefully uncover more…