Trobades Fugaces (Brief Encounters)

written for the exhibition/show ‘La Dia de la Dona Treballadora’ for Gresol, March, 2006

Performance as a fleeting encounter? Can we think of performance art in terms of travellers meeting, just for a moment, and sharing an experience? It’s a start – understanding this often difficult art form can sometimes present a challenge. Generally speaking, the viewer encounters a performance rather than simply ‘seeing’ the work. The encounters I am thinking of here are actions, not stage based presentations but body-based actions that occur in a particular space and time. These actions can take the form of an activity, shape a scene or involve the artists’ body, directly engaging with the physical structure of the space. Whatever form they take, performance actions demand that an encounter with the viewer/audience/passer-by occurs in some way or other. The performance itself thus occurs in the encounter between two or more bodies in space and time. Such actions rarely produce an art object as such and often leave no trace of their occurrence. Perhaps there will be an occasional hole in the wall left behind, some faded marks or perhaps it is just that the dust has been disturbed. For the most part nothing remains, save for the memory of the experience, itself just as powerful as any other we may have. When nothing is meant to remain then we must look to the experience itself as the work of art.

My involvement with the Trobade Fugaces event is firstly as an invited artist. I was excited to be involved with an event comprising seven women, one medieval castle and the marking of International Women’s Day. The international nature of the group of artists, only two of whom spoke Catalan, meant that we had to devise works that could transcend spoken language. It meant that we had to rely on the ‘language’ of performance, of our bodies, to produce a coherent show. My second involvement with the event comes with this text. But rather than describe the show or try to explain what they might mean, I wanted to talk about my experiences and to try to contextualise them.

I arrived late at night – having exchanged the conditioned air of Los Angeles, a very modern city imposed on a desert, for the clean sharp air of Girona, an ancient province that evolved in the shadows of the Pyrenees. I looked out of my window, trying to make sense of this place that I found myself in. Outside, bright stars shone in the bible black sky and in the distance the mountains loomed dark and heavy and ancient. It was that deepest point of the night, when everything lies still, when everything is enveloped in silence. Silencio…save for the wind. Blowing off the mountains and travelling across the plain the wind rose and fell, moaning softly. Apparently there is an old local story of a dragon – the mournful cries of the wind are said to be his lamentations as he searches for his mate, as he calls for a wife. I leave the dragon to his sighs and return to my own thoughts. I am in Girona – La Bisbal d’Emporda – to participate in an art event organised by artist Denys Blacker. In two days, on International Women’s Day, the event takes place and intriguingly it will happen in a medieval castle. Already I am struck by the contrasts between old and new, between now and then. Not only have I swapped a space of modernity for one of antiquity but also my whole trip has been organised online, yet outside the window I think I can hear a dragon. I decide I need some sleep.

In the morning I meet with the other women who are going to take part in the Trobades Fugaces event. All of us are artists, we all make performance. Our encounters with each other and with La Bisbal d’Emporda will be fleeting, but nonetheless powerful and significant. Writing here, I attempt to articulate that experience, subjectively told to be sure, and to consider what it might mean to make a performance art action in this particular place, on this particular day. It is not my intention to explain the artist’s work but to speak of the significance of these encounters and to address why I feel it is important that we take part in such actions. After all, performance can seem to be a strange activity. Consider this: >>