15/03/16 Walker performance

'KATIE'

Performance

15/03/16

A couple of weeks ago i did a performance in Walker Art Gallery. Each time i go there i cannot but feel overwhelmed and overpowered due to its heavy framing and packed display. Looking at all the heavy framed paintings and detailed wallpaper is a bit too much for me to handle. I love the place but i cannot stay there for long. So the performance was a test for me to see how i feel in a space when i go through a particular experience. My performance that i did required me to see the space through the eyes of a child. School trips are really popular in the Walker, and by joining one of the trips myself a couple of days before the performance, to observe the behaviours and responses by children, i decided to do a performance which required me to be one. I dressed in school uniform, not wearing any makeup or jewellery, i decided to sit on the floor of room 8 of the gallery and using pencils and crayons i drew the paintings i saw like a child would in my observations on a trip. During my two hour performance which was more of an experience i found myself feeling strange. Sitting on the floor whilst people walked passed me made me feel below them. It intensified my feeling of vulnerability. I felt like i did not deserve to be around these paintings. They were looking down on me. I felt small. Its interesting how in my observations children did not display such behaviour, they were happy and eager to find out more about the paintings. Does something happen in the way we see museums as we grow older? What changes? Children don't feel it but adults do.

I stayed in room throughout the 2 hour performance, going from one painting to the next. In this sort of authoritative atmosphere it was hard not to question my every move and put down everything that i was doing. People looked at me and my drawings and often walked passed me, some took pictures and some stayed with me to see the completion of a drawing. I did not feel like myself due to removing everything that was me - the clothes, the hairstyles, the rings, even the makeup. Everything that was me was gone and i was a clean slate, vulnerable in a setting where i did not feel like myself. The more time passed the more uncomfortable i felt in the space. However, i have completed the 2 hours of performance and learnt a lot from it.

It wasn't a fail it was still a success in terms of what i have found from it. I think i would have felt like this in any of the gallery spaces which have an authority to them, as they tend to overpower their viewers. But i could not help but wonder at what age do children start feeling like this, as when i was observing how children behave in gallery spaces as i mentioned before, they did not display such behaviour. They were excited and happy and intrigued by the paintings. I guess this is my outcome. I have tried to go through the same experience as a child would on a school trip, however i am not a child and will never know what goes through a child's head when looking at these great paintings.

I think there's is still a potential to explore this further.

~Ev