Emit
Coleman Project Space
Press release
EMIT: a dialogue through time March18 – April 9
Performance: Secret conversations we didn’t know we were having.
3pm Sunday 9 April
Coleman Project Space is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Anne
Bean that have grown out of several instigations including her film-performance project ‘Night Chant’ –completed for the Whitechapel gallery’s 2015 symposium ‘Performance and Politics in 1970s’.
Bean is interested in the different ways artists have been influenced over the years by the permissive space that performance art has provided. ‘Night Chant’ is a short film that explores the artist’s personal connections with two, sadly now deceased, women artists with whom she shared her ideas – Rita Harris and Alexis Hunter – who were both based in Bermondsey during the seventies. In a recent Art Monthly interview, Bean said of these relationships: ‘We are each other’s archives and legacies’.
Hunter used photography to powerfully buck sexual, social and gender stereotypes, while Harris became a recognised master of T’ai Chi, using her art as a healing tool, such as leading a ritual ceremony as part of Bean’s ‘365 dresses’, a CGP London commission performed locally in Southwark Park in 2005.
For the exhibition at Coleman Project Space, Bean has worked with performance photographer Manuel Vason, to create a series of images for the main gallery depicting sites of significance to the work and lives of Harris and Hunter. These include the room where Hunter made her most radical feminist works, such as ‘Domestic Warfare,’ 1975, and the park where Rita worked and taught t’ai chi. ‘Night Chant’ will be projected in the shed space, which will also become the site for Bean’s new performance work: ‘Secret conversations we didn’t know we were having’.
‘Secret conversations we didn’t know we were having’ used cards that could be recorded onto and mirrors to reflect the words from the film Night Chant. The audience/participators wrote a few words on a mirror or recorded a few words on a card so that the room filled with multiple reflections and numerous varied voices as the film was turned off.
Emit
Coleman Project Space
Press release
EMIT: a dialogue through time March18 – April 9
Performance: Secret conversations we didn’t know we were having.
3pm Sunday 9 April
Coleman Project Space is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Anne
Bean that have grown out of several instigations including her film-performance project ‘Night Chant’ –completed for the Whitechapel gallery’s 2015 symposium ‘Performance and Politics in 1970s’.
Bean is interested in the different ways artists have been influenced over the years by the permissive space that performance art has provided. ‘Night Chant’ is a short film that explores the artist’s personal connections with two, sadly now deceased, women artists with whom she shared her ideas – Rita Harris and Alexis Hunter – who were both based in Bermondsey during the seventies. In a recent Art Monthly interview, Bean said of these relationships: ‘We are each other’s archives and legacies’.
Hunter used photography to powerfully buck sexual, social and gender stereotypes, while Harris became a recognised master of T’ai Chi, using her art as a healing tool, such as leading a ritual ceremony as part of Bean’s ‘365 dresses’, a CGP London commission performed locally in Southwark Park in 2005.
For the exhibition at Coleman Project Space, Bean has worked with performance photographer Manuel Vason, to create a series of images for the main gallery depicting sites of significance to the work and lives of Harris and Hunter. These include the room where Hunter made her most radical feminist works, such as ‘Domestic Warfare,’ 1975, and the park where Rita worked and taught t’ai chi. ‘Night Chant’ will be projected in the shed space, which will also become the site for Bean’s new performance work: ‘Secret conversations we didn’t know we were having’.
‘Secret conversations we didn’t know we were having’ used cards that could be recorded onto and mirrors to reflect the words from the film Night Chant. The audience/participators wrote a few words on a mirror or recorded a few words on a card so that the room filled with multiple reflections and numerous varied voices as the film was turned off.
