Difference Fostered - Re-positioning historic memory through performance strategies and ephemeral actions
- Submitting institution
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University of Northumbria at Newcastle
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 26436527
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- May
- Year of first performance
- 2016
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Difference Fostered (DF) was a collaborative, eleven-hour performance with Dominic Thorpe, developed in response to the challenges of commemorative re-engagement with traumatic cultural memory.
The project aimed to develop performance strategies for re-positioning historic memory in contemporary contexts and address ideas of commemoration through ephemeral actions. DF also extended Johnston’s long-term research into empathetic encounter as a transformative form of political testimony.
Commissioned for Future Histories, marking the centenary of the Easter Rising, DF explored Irish national history alongside a contested communal memory at Kilmainham Gaol. Directly contributing to an influential tradition of site-responsive performance art (Kaye 2000), the action refused to perpetuate over-literal symbols or grand narratives, instead unfolding ‘present’ Irish identification with the Easter Rising through an interpersonal dialogue between artists from different backgrounds and oppositional historical perspectives. Johnston’s approach to conveying trauma is through embodied acts of commemoration that engage an ‘Empathetic Vision’ as explored in depth by Bennett 2005.
The durational approach of the work extended Johnston’s ongoing working association with Thorpe – involving strategies of reconfiguring explicit political content through non-verbal, sustained gestures. Preliminary research, undertaken through a series of site visits revealed the prison’s past capitulation to colonial power. Situating the work in the Governor’s Quarters made this historical abuse of power palpable, and also enabled a contemporary political reframing by encompassing a window view of Dublin’s present financial sector.
This centenary project confirmed the capacity of contemporary performance art to interact meaningfully with Ireland’s history, an outcome recognised by a major Arts Council Ireland award. The event accrued an audience of 400 viewers, and has been widely disseminated through a catalogue and a film documentary screened at conferences and European festivals, including Networking Performance Histories, at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Zurich and NGBK Gallery, Berlin
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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