Heike Roms

An Oral History of Performance Art in Wales (22 February 2007) from left to right: Heike Roms, John Chris Jones, Timothy Emlyn Jones, Andrew Knight. Photo: Phil Babot

Contribution on Bristol Day: Live Art Oral History, 30 April 2007 and on Glasgow Day:Placing Performance Histories, 18 June 2007

“What's Welsh for Performance? Beth yw 'Performance' yn Gymraeg?” - An Oral History of Performance Art in Wales
www.performance-wales.org

Project Summary

A two-year series of events devoted to key artists who have shaped the development of performance art in Wales since 1968. Public conversations with Ivor Davies, Roland Miller, Shirley Cameron, Anthony Howell and others will introduce the audience to a hitherto neglected but crucial part of Welsh art history.

Concept

'What's Welsh for performance?' - 'Beth yw 'performance' yn Gymraeg?' is dedicated to uncovering and documenting some of the hidden history of performance art in Wales and to creating a critical public debate around this often marginalised and ridiculed art form. The intention is to use the primarily anecdotal nature of much of the current engagement with the genre as the starting point for the development of a more comprehensive, informed and reflective “oral history” of performance in Wales.

A total of 7 conversations will be conducted, spread over a period of 16 months (Oct 2006-Jan 2007).

Each conversation will be devoted to a different artist, institution or occasion, and as such will be offering a full introduction to its respective subject, which is conceived as a self-contained event. Taken together as a series, the conversations will provide a comprehensive overview over the past 40 years of performance art in Wales, from Ivor Davies' first happenings in the late 1960s right through to the present day, and touching on related areas such as performance poetry and experimental theatre.

Content and Format

The conversations will be staged as live public events. Each will be 1.5 - 2 hours long, including time for questions from the audience. Extensive documentary material (videos, slides, drawings etc) will be screened as part of the event.
Contrasting the familiar formats of public speech, academic lecture or panel discussion, the conversations will use instead oral history and personal memory to mark the instances where professional knowledge and theoretical discourse are woven into an individual's life story and daily artistic practice. The aim is to make transparent the intensions, decisions, sincerity and commitment behind an artist's work. There are fewer and fewer places where a serious debate on contemporary art in Wales is taking place - the series is aiming to create such a public space in the encounter with the personal and professional history of a number of influential arts practitioners.
The conversations will not, however, suggest that these artists' stories are providing us with the only possible, authoritative version of events. Audiences will be encouraged to add their own memories, helping to accumulate a truly performative and interactive archive of performance art in Wales.

Follow-Up Events

1. The Stall/ Y Stondin (working title): a mobile temporary installation where audiences can listen to the archive of all sound recordings made at the series and respond by recording their own personal memories of performance art in Wales.
To be installed at key events during 2007-2008, including Experimentica (Cardiff) 2007 and Cardiff Art in Time CAT (Cardiff) 2007.
2. The Lecture/Y Darlith (working title): 10 public lectures (using the material generated at the series of conversations) at which audiences can inform themselves about performance art in Wales.
10 lectures are planned throughout 2008 and will be offered to universities, further education colleges, schools and art societies around Wales. The lectures will be used to present findings as well as provide an occasion to further develop the interactive archive.

Summary of aims

Through this project, we aim:
- to uncover and document an important part of Welsh art history…
… by conducting conversations with key artists who have shaped the development of performance art in Wales since 1968.
- to offer a forum for critical debate on performance art in Wales…
… by staging these conversations in the public domain and encouraging critical responses.
- to make innovative work more accessible and comprehensible to a wider audience…
… by providing an insight into the intentions, decisions, sincerity and commitment behind an artist's creative work.
- to provide artists, above all early-career artists, with a sense of history and continuity, thereby contributing to their professional development…
… by addressing in particular students and young-career artists.
- to establish the distinctiveness of Welsh performance art…
… by exploring how an artistic field or scene is formed, delineated and developed within a particular cultural, social and environmental context.
- to raise the profile of Welsh performance at a national and international level …
… by distributing the outcome of the events across Wales and beyond trough publications and the website.
- to create a vibrant, performative, interactive “live archive” of performance art in Wales….
… by inviting audiences to contribute their own memories of performance art in Wales.