I say a little prayer for you, responses

If you missed the radio show or would like to listen again, you can access the performance here:

I say a little prayer for you, responses

Using a process of collaborative conversation, listening and recording, I collect stories and produce objects which help me understand relationships. Relationships within ourselves, exploring identity, ones internal world and public performance of the self. This process is durational, both in the exchange of ideas and stories and how I chose to contextualise and re-perform the material. I say a little prayer for you, responses includes retelling stories in public spaces and live to air in the form of radio broadcast.

The physically/embodied collaborative component in I say a little prayer for you happens in domestic, private spaces, within a framework of trust, taking time and care. Modes of sharing and collaboration have historical connections to how women come together and form community.

Is it possible to represent the nuanced and contradictory nature of the individual stories shared and is the work a display of collective experiences? My response is to share stories from women and my responses via radio broadcast. This is an attempt to avoid reducing the work into a universalised homogenous experience, instead I draw attention to the stories that came from the process, these stories seem to be the heart of the work.

Joanna S. Walker highlighted the absence of the body of the artist or performer; the trace of the work or a performance was ephemeral or suggestive of other ways of seeing.¹ Moving from ‘seeing’ to ‘hearing’ I attempt to shift focus from the objects and material outcomes to my processes and the conversations the project has opened up.

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Notes

[1.] Walker, Joanna S. ‘The Body Is Present Even If in Disguise: Tracing the Trace in the Artwork of Nancy Spero and Ana Mendieta’. Accessed 12 August 2018. http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/11/the-body-is-present-even-if-in-disguise-tracing-the-trace-in-the-artwork-of-nancy-spero-and-ana-mendieta.