We, Her, Us with M.A.Brookes, Anna Martine Whitehead, Wafaa Yasin, and Roxy Farhat

This parallel session took place in the Art Building, room 260 on Saturday. When I arrived and introduced myself to the artists, I first noticed that only two of them where there and then upon speaking with M.A. Brookes and Anna Martine learned that the panel was no longer a panel but a performance…then I noticed the very small turn out of people…and the disarray of the room they had to work in…and it seemed to me that the artists were going to sort of wing it…and I was concerned. Soon enough both artists were clad in black and white attire that was skin tight, and began moving down a crowded hall ways wrapping each other, their surroundings, and other people in a long strand of plastic wrap. All of the people they came in proximity with were attendees of the conference and were waiting in a huge line for a much more popular panel. Their performance seemed only to mildly inconvenience the crowd as they slowly tried to get around Whitehead and Brookes to get good seats for their panel. No one watched or interacted with this happening at all, even as some were forced to hop over Brookes, or unravel themselves from the plastic. Again I was pretty concerned.

The artist pair slowly moved back into room 260, a group of about six people following them. At this point my concern and discomfort was dispelled. The two women began to ask the small group questions, one after another while answering no questions themselves. This act caused the group to speak with one another freely, and dismantled the typical dynamic that occurs in a lot of “art talks”. The conversation meandered over topics of interest to the group, and touched here and there upon the ideas of femininity, location, otherness, and building identity in relation to them. I felt like this was one of the few planned and orchestrated conversations I’ve been apart of that allowed for a comfortable and more level exchange between artist and audience. I feel silly even identifying the dynamic as “artist” and “audience” when it was more like ten people sitting around, having a discussion that was valuable to those involved.

After a little while I noticed that Roxy Farhat and Wafaa Yasin were both represented by video and projection works, but the objects and other physical traits of the room becamse suggestions and accessories of and to the conversation. Instead of simply existing as a projection on a wall, or video on a screen, the presence of the conversation transformed Farhat and Yasin’s work into contributions to the present activity of exchange.

All in all, it was good to have this experience because it challenged my perception of performance, and a different kind of dialogue people can have in order to examine the artist-audience roles. Whitehead and Brookes, by asking questions, allowed for the alteration and questioning of the meaning and casting of those roles.