Posts tagged with "railings"

Deeds Not Words

Alternative Title #1:  ‘How the Suffragettes Invented Performance Art’[1]

Alternative Title #2:  Railing in the Wind

In advance of our Glen Prosen week we were given a ‘social change’ assignment.  I chose the suffragettes.  I am interested in many aspects of this chapter in our history and it’s legacy but for my research I wanted to consider my personal connection with the topic.

Two aspects became very present for me during this time;

  • I was interested in perfomativity and I wanted to examine the connections between the actions of the suffragettes and my own work in teaching performance.  For this aspect I revisit Leslie Hill’s article.
  • I was interested in the power of direct action and how some actions become transformed into iconic images, which remain in our collective consciousness long after the event.  For this aspect I consider the women who chained themselves to the railings of the Parliament buildings.

To address the first, I stand on the Hill of Spott in Glen Prosen, beside a tree.  I have tied my WSPU (Women’s Social and Political Union) scarf to a branch and the green, purple and white flaps in the high wind.  My colleagues sit around the tree.  I tell them about Nic Green’s Trilogy[2] and we hum ‘Jerusalem’ together in memory of the suffragettes and in tribute to Nic’s work.

I hurl my words into the wind,

  • The personal IS political
  • The body is the site of oppression and resistance
  • The power of live presence cannot be underestimated
  • The performance of personal truths is more important to me than acting

To consider the second, I begin to photograph railings.

I ask myself some questions;

What would I chain myself to railings for? What are my beliefs? What are my railings?

Some answers are;

I believe in:

  • human capacity for growth and change
  • radical pedagogy
  • my family
  • the interconnectedness of all living things
  • the idea that we contain within ourselves all we need to live our lives now
  • valuing intuition
  • taking time
  • being hopeful

As I make this list, I realise I will need good strong railings and warm clothes…I may be some time!

[1] Hill, L., 2000. Suffragettes Invented Performance Art. In Goodman, L., ed., The Routledge Performance Reader. London: Routledge.

[2] http://www.nicgreen.org.uk/

Posted: March 6, 2011 | Author: Deborah Richardson-Webb | Comments: 1 

A Morning Dérive, Glasgow City Centre

“In a dérive[i] one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.  Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.”

Guy Debord 1958


My threshold – sliding doors.

I wait for the second hand to reach o’clock – it’s 11.15am.

I cross the threshold and walk under the tall brick arch…

Renfrew Street

Wait cross with care

Savoy Centre

Wear a protective face mask

Sauchiehall Street into Wellington Street

Wear ear defenders and steel toe-capped boots

Bath Street

Dial 999 and ask for ambulance

Blytheswood Road

Wait cross with care

Blytheswood Square

Private property enter at own risk

My planned place, a little green space in the city, I plan to sit on a bench in this small park and watch the city pass by.  There are no benches!  I contemplate sitting on the ground or a wastebin.  The feeling of liberation I felt walking with my pockets empty, carrying nothing, without ‘phone or money, now turns to feeling ill-equipped as I haven’t brought my little sit mat.  I feel sitting on the top of the bin will attract too much attention – I may look like a strange performance art installation and decide being on the top of a waste bin is definitely not what I want to say about myself!  I continue…

Douglas Street

No entry

St Vincent Street

Wait cross with care

Pitt Street

St Vincent Lane

I now plan to get up high.  I have a memory of steps and a place with a view but I find locked gates.  I sit on the concrete steps beside a sign

24 hour emergency fire access

My company, a plastic bin full of empty Red Bull cans and a Vauxhall Vectra with a broken wing mirror.  I am behind an Alexander ‘Greek’ Thompson building.  I wonder how I will know my 90 minutes are over, I have given myself plenty of time – I’m not teaching until 2pm.  I look up and see I am underneath a tall clock tower.

I am warm but the concrete steps are cold.  I take off my leather gloves and sit on them.  My space is five metres by ten metres.  I can see;

A locked car

A locked gate

A locked bicycle

A locked plant pot filled with concrete and chained to the railings.

I think of the suffragettes.  I am leaning against a railing.  I wonder if some of the radical suffragette actions were a bit like a solo?  What did a suffragette wear when planning to chain herself to railings indefinitely?  I can hear;

A pneumatic drill

Cars

Buses

Brakes

Seagulls

The hammering of metal on stone.

I look for signs of something growing.  The architectural patterns on the church are abstractions of natural forms, weathered and worn, blackened by years of smoke and grime.  I can see some tiny green weeds and some moss growing at the bottom of the building in the cracks, irrepressible weeds.

The clock says noon.  (Sitting on my gloves is really helping and I’m pleased with my idea.)  I realise I am worried about the time.  There are consequences to my solo time spilling over today.  I realise I am not sitting under this clock tower by accident.

There’s so much to look at.  Sensory overload.  One of the stone blocks to my left has been dislodged.  The wall, the dislodged stone, the manufactured materials;

Concrete

Plastic

Paper

Paint

Rubber

Glass

All testify to the presence of humans, human endeavour, human intervention, human invention.

I’m such a scribbler at these times, perhaps on my next solo I should leave my notebook behind, see what of the flotsam and jetsam survives over time – days, weeks, years.

The hands on the clock seem to speed round.  My glove trick has stopped working.  The sun has clouded over and my feet are getting cold.  It’s time to walk back.  15 minutes walk, 1 hour to sit, 15 minutes walk.  I have an urge to go inside the church before I leave;

Visitors welcome

It’s locked.

I walk more slowly back but I want to retrace my steps.

St Vincent Lane

Pitt Street

St Vincent Street

Douglas Street

Blytheswood Square

Blytheswood Road

Bath Street

Wellington Street

Sauchiehall Street

Savoy Centre

Renfrew Street

Give way

I re-cross my threshold at 12.49

[i] dérive: literally “drift” or “drifting.”

Posted: February 8, 2011 | Author: Deborah Richardson-Webb | Comments: 1