The aim is to safely and collaboratively take over space. 

In collaboration our personal practices counter and encounter, strengthen and support. 

We adapt and we grow. 

 

Performing Alchemy

Beginning with Meditative Grounding Activities to center and unite; The Collective will disperse and map the area into personal sacred spaces to inhabit. 

Artists can freely move between spaces, amassing personal energy before interacting with or alongside others. They can break and transition to audience. Or signal to leave if feeling overwhelmed. 

Equally, Spectators are invited to be amongst the Collective and encounter their techniques.

Remnants and residues are worked on by all unless ritually signified as ‘revered objects’. 

We continually transform and distort.

Installation(s) viewed as singular or unabridged, with or without associated bodies. 

Our Awkward Displacements anthropomorphized over time. Safely exorcising inner-self into actions and objects, which they transmute via a visual archeology of their lived bodies. Blank gallery space oversaturated into something else. 

Into Other...

 

HOWL

GAL Collective emerged from HOWL - a weekly workshop held at Guerrilla Art Lab, Nottingham.

Initially led by Rachel Parry and Annette Foster, a cooperative style was encouraged at HOWL. Knowledge, Skill-sharing and positive feedback sessions were paramount to nurture & honor the whole person and build in resilience for each artist while learning performance semantics. 

Processes used were nothing new (Heuristic, Jin Shin Jyutsu, Trans-personal Psychology, Butoh, Contact Improvisation). We drew on the experiences of those who attended and became centred on our own Awkward Displacements:

Group choreographed micro-actions arose from their own self-soothing and idiosyncratic impulses:

Right hand clasping then rubbing shoulders.

Winding hair. 

Palm on face. 

Tapping.

Interlacing fingers.

Shallow breathing.

Swaying.

Going to ground.

LiveArt pieces emerged from each artist incorporating Movement, Dance, Noise, Projections, and Impermanent Installations. We used base materials to ground ourselves:

WOOD | PAPER | METAL | AIR | WATER | EARTH | MEMORIES | LOVE | COAL | DOUGH | ELECTRICITY | BLOOD | TIME

And developed a mantra to guide our work:

MAKE REPEAT LOOP EDIT KEEP ADAPT DESTROY

We combined everything forming a Durational, Post-Fluxus Dada, En-mass Happening. Semi-scored & conducted by Rachel Parry while artists self-curate an auto ethnographical journey through learned aural signifiers and Noetic Balancing.

Using Format