STORY SURGERY
During Franko B residency, Artsadmin, 26-30 March 2007 and a one-off event at Candid Arts, 10 May 2007
“a really atmospheric environment in which to elicit…(my) thoughts…. It was excellently done…and laid out with a clear degree of intelligence (of all kinds!)….
- Sarah Rubidge
64c
an installation in an empty flat, experienced alone, 64c Ickburgh Road, Hackney, East London, 28 May – 1 June 2007, by appointment
“I wanted to thank you for the experience - it was both reassuring and unsettling to experience memory in such tangible form, a validation of this much neglected part of our existence. What happens to what is no longer happening? You gave it existence.”
- Claudia Jefferies
“I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your installation 64c.
I felt like a detective piecing together a fragmented assemblage of memory, emotional loss, private journals, and other fragmented narratives. The space felt erotically charged and gendered old stockings, the bathroom ribboned in black, the red pod that felt womb-like and secretive, the peep hole video
work. Something melancholic and sexual lurked in the spaces, and as spect-actor I both acted upon the props and objects that I came across and reflected on the people who wrote or left these pieces of text, clothing and diaries.
It’s difficult not to recall Gregor Schneider’s Die Familie Schneider when poking about in a domestic space on your own. Schneider allows the orderly nostalgic everyday domestic home to possess you like a horrible claustrophobic nightmare, but Lisa Alexander’s world is one of loss and sadness, messy but intriguing it is the possession of an empty flat temporarily inhabited by an ensemble of memories.”
- Manick Govinda
“The work has possibilities…it has anthropological potential in terms of being a touring
piece in other countries, the geographical cultural, political landscape that you
could engage with…nothing exists alone... we don't invent language, we appropriate it.”
- Franko B
64c: examples of messages left in the red cupboard
Very very moving listening to the lady who'd had scarlet fever and lost her little brother to it…it is so good to be reminded that everybody has their story - the way our narratives chatter side by side and we only get these small glimpses - but not normally on the level of these interviews. This is inspiring and human in a big city…It's also a strange and rare privilege to be given permission to read someone else's diaries - full of such familiar angst! v. brave! x
How odd and reassuring to see the past made tangible like this.
Eerie combination of womb-like yet like a coffin of the heart - surprised I can stay in here, more comforting than I expected with its lushness
The worlds within our worlds and the worlds within them live and die, emerge and fade away............but remain in traces of smell, sounds, sensings
I can’t find you and you’ve got the things I’d often leave unspoken
Work-in-progress, 11 & 12 June 2007, White Room at The People Show, London
I just wanted to thank you and your performers again for Tuesday night. It was an evening of incredible beauty, and was very easy to get lost within…Your process, from what I've read about it, looks fascinating, and the accumulation of recorded stories must have helped the performers a great deal in getting into the frame of mind where they were as willing as they were to share their own histories and stories as they were… It never once sank into the self-indulgence that everything without a pre-planned structure that I have seen normally falls into, yet there was a lovely haphazardness that hid any rigidity of form that may have hindered the honesty… keep me informed with what you are doing with the piece. It was a wonderful experience to witness.
- Tim Jeeves
and two audience members’ answers to projective questions
[each audience member was given a sheet to fill out quickly before entering studio]
I smile
Think
The world is the same
By myself
Very few very important
About the desert
A candle
Being married…I didn’t want it anymore
That I’m a very bad person
Rob / kill people
I remember the sound of the voice and the shape of the hands
I go away
Of something to say I wish I could see the stars.
Is in peace with herself I feel very fortunate.
A letter I have had moments of utter weakness.
After being awake all the night: amazing! When I wasn’t thinking of you?
A fox comes close All the things that will come back to me as I die.
My earrings That I actually mean something
When I want to be alone The days start getting longer again.
I could open my theatre in Italy To stay alive he broke down like I have never seen him cry before.
Nobody The story of my life would it make it easier to live?
I think of swimming forever Remember how short the feelings I have now will last.
Being seen as a baby I lose myself.
Thought that London was very far I feel awkward and wish we had a relationship where silence didn’t matter.
The sofas! (joking!) Jane & Lisa They forget that they’re a person.
They don’t count the money in the wallet Some dirty old leaves and used them as toilet paper when I was sledging.
Of the world upside down Late but better than I did last night.
Yes but not a lot… The day is consumed in its embers.
Relationships.
Yes.
No ifs, no buts. I am happy. Sometimes.
The people I daren’t break away from.
I am reminded of infinity as I gaze at the sea and the stars.
How much I masturbate.
I decided I never wanted my life to change. It did.
Me, I’m alone right now.
They stop feeling sorry for themselves.
Slippers and open fires.
Nothing I’d change.
