lisapalexa@gmail.com
www.spaceofmemory.blogspot.com

space of memory culminated in 2 parts:

Part 1: an installation in an unoccupied flat, 64c – viewed by appointment. Part 2: a devised performance/work-in-progress at The People Show: I can’t find you and you’ve got the things I’d often leave unspoken.

The piece used the material from 64c as a starting point in addition to all the research I've done over the past year. Sound was integral to both works, as a device for the re-inscription of memory/events. I also created a one-on-one piece: Story Surgery. I plan to develop this work series for touring as a site-generated triptych.

[Photography/images by Lisa Alexander, except 8 & 9: Biggi Stiller]

Lisa, August, 2007

A statement….

The first thing God created was the journey and then there was doubt and nostalgia

[Ulysses’ Gaze, film, dir Theo Angelopoulos, 1996]

I suppose I’m interested in the doubt and nostalgia in life…in my own…and in the world about me…and how we arrive there and especially the place in between…this is where I create from – it is a starting point for a journey forwards backwards sideways…of re-inscription and erasure…the place of memory and forgetting…how and why we paper over tragic events…the messy interludes…the waking moments…of loss…of grace…the traces of presence and palimpsests…the tragicomedy of shame, of being silenced, the need to confess…

I’m currently engaged in a period of research and development for a piece of performance and an installation, routed in an exploration of what a space of memory is and the intimate narratives of the home, how (to quote Bachelard) we take our lares with us. The interweave between remembrance in the home whilst forgetting in society at large....versions of the truth…what we forget and why…the weight of an individual's life, breath, presence, memories, self. I am mixing biography with autobiography and reportage.

Marconi, inventor of the telegraph, came to believe at the end of his life that once a sound has been generated it doesn’t die, but simply grows fainter and fainter, and given a sensitive enough ear and the right place to listen, one could hear it forever.

I am in the process of booking slots and interviews in friends and strangers’ homes around the UK to encounter a moment of their lives, to facilitate a ritual of remembrance, to record via sound and other means and collect material for a devising process with a composer and performers. My geographical starting point was Nuttall Street in the Edge Lane area of Liverpool, due to be pulled down shortly for ‘regeneration’ giving added poignancy to an exploration of memory. I am looking at biographies of everyday routine and ‘hidden portraits’ of streets from a physical, emotional and historical perspective. Part of the process will involve aurally recording people talking about their homes as they walk around them.

The process itself has splintered and transmogrified into a series of small interventions, pieces, installations in their own right. This is true of my practice itself – I am not settled on one particular form and am at a point at which I want to challenge my received notions of how to express, of what to express, to keep myself where the energy of the work is, to brave ridicule and stick with integrity. I’ve had a meandering route from originally training in dance theatre and choreography (LABAN 1996) and have over the last 2 or 3 years been interested in sound, installation and how space is occupied and emplacement. The understanding of movement and physical endeavour, the visceral – is however a lens through which I create my work, as is the practice of writing and site-generated performance.

The week at Artsadmin with Franko has brought up themes and ideas I’ve had ticking over for sometime…and it has allowed me to re-frame my relationship to my practice and to re-instate the autobiographical… it’s been difficult, powerful and exhausting…who knows where next, and although there’s fear – I’m in an airport lounge and could catch any plane! The important thing is to keep working this time…I want to make work with greater frequency…it really helps having an ongoing dialogue with everyone in the group no matter how disparate our practice may at first appear…I’ve really valued this dialogue last week…

Bits n’ pieces from last week’s residency:

Funeral of unwanted things:

1. [white sandals] circa 1999. I’ve eaten two third’s of a loaf of bread. And I’m sat here printing out words to – to see my words in print. And I’m comparing them with Matt’s.
2. [grey stockings] c1992/1. Don’t be frightened! The important thing is to get well. FORGET.
3. [fan] c2005. Sicily. I was so scared that my teeth would go black and fall out as I child. I had dreams. Now I have four teeth missing and part of my bridge cracked. Mortality. Fragility
4. [50’s reading glasses] c2004. Bought off ebay. Alex. Lust. Affectation.
5. [woollen hat] c1980. Keep her informed of our location at all times. (Mum). Wait for her instructions. Can’t move.
6. [page from A-Z] c1991/2. First A-Z. Pat. Beginnings of order.
7. [teeth moulds] c2003/5. Dream came true. Be careful what you dream.
8. [white dress].c2000. Never worn. Crouch end. Pretence.
9. [paper bag]. c2004. Contained present from former friend. Cologne. Talking at cross purposes. No sex.
10. [various items] 2004/6. Unwanted gifts from my mother.
11. [black basque top] 1999. If you could only unclasp my hands hold me hold me I would weep forever.

Excerpts from a home interview, a kitchen in Glasgow, March 2007:

The sun goes round the rooms all the day so if I’m up soon enough I’ll put a mark on the wall where the sun is
2/12/06 12:24

17/12 12:25

now we’re moving into summer it’ll move down to there

since ’92

face more or less
due north

sun is directly overhead

it’s 40watts

nothing extraordinary happened here

I do things other than cooking here

Examples of work: (excluding performance and freelance work at theatre/arts companies)

The Space of Memory: Intimate Narratives (working title)
Consultation phase for a new work of theatre / installation, funded by Arts Council England and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2006/7

WITHIN
St. Augustine’s Tower, London
Sound, light and journey-based durational installation in a 12th century tower inspired by an aural and visual portrait of the immediate area, the ways in which space is occupied and the traces we leave behind. Funded by Arts Council England, London, 2004 (see images)

Artery
Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Havana, CUBA
V International Digital Arts Festival
Looped video piece with sound installation on the layering of time and the isolation of the present (video 5:48), sound track created using contact microphones recording dance in The Whispering Gallery. Video of commuters on London Bridge: with fluctuation in sound track; focus zooms into and out of moving image frame, 2003

Dance4Radio
RESONANCE FM, London
A series of 5 sound works created using choreography, performed/recorded interacting with different sonic environments and microphones: 1. Greenwich Foot Tunnel 2. The Whispering Gallery, (St. Paul’s) 3. Clissold Park 4. The Shakespeare Public House 5. Performed live on Resonance FM whilst a live mix was created. Supported by a space subsidy from The Jerwood Space, 2002

An imaginary day in the life
West Green Learning Centre, London
Dance film created during a residency at Park View Academy (video 10:00), 2002

24hrs in Green Lanes
Northern Exposure Dance Festival, Bull Arts Centre, London
Dance film inspired by the 24 hour culture of Turkish and Greek-Cypriot area of Green Lanes, North London, filmed in and around a Turkish café (video 4:30), 2001

Cat & Mutton Bridge E5
Dance Film Forum, Chisenhale Dance Space, London
3 single-take films: chase sequence on Regents Canal (1, 2 and 3 min), 2000

Automatic Histories
Chats Palace, London
Live installation exploring local identity and devised autobiography created during a residency, 1999

RESIDENCIES

The Snout Belly Bowel in performance practice
Resident Artist, Chisenhale Dance Space, London
Proximity senses in performance and installation, journey, one-on-one and recollection, 2005
http://www.chisenhaledancespace.co.uk/ss05.htm

Expo Enez Vaz
Ile de Batz Festival, Brittany, France
One of 15 invited artists creating live site-located interventions on the island, 2004

Working from Location: Vocal and Movement Response
Resident Artist, Workshop Leader: Ekaterinberg Contemporary Arts Centre, Urals, RUSSIA
Performance lab with undergraduate students on the Advanced Performance Course, 2001

Site-specific performance and installation
Resident Artist, Workshop Leader, OPENLOOK International Dance Festival, St. Petersburg, RUSSIA
2 week residency with professional and undergrad dancers of Kannon Dance School creating 2 site-specific pieces

AWARDS

Dance, Theatre & Digital Arts in Havana, Cuba
5 week research trip to Cuba: interviews and rehearsal observations with seminal figures in dance physical theatre and digital art-forms; for example: Ramiro Guerra, funded by Arts Council England (professional development award), 2003

New dance practice in St. Petersburg, Russia
Recipient of a LONDON ARTS GO! Award, 2001

Bursary for Doctoral Research (PhD) in contemporary theatre practice: Sensory knowledge and cultural emplacement: conditions of reverie and resonance in the making of artwork
School of Visual and Performing Arts, University College Chichester, (part time, 2004-2007)

Scholarship at LABAN Centre for Movement and Dance for duration of undergraduate study
BA honours in Dance Theatre 2:1, 1993-1996