Front or The Dinner Party

Description

The title for the Cabaret was taken from the book of interviews with Julia Kristeva, (2003)*. Maria Walsh in her notes for the participants comments: ‘Julia Kristeva contrasts the original richness of the term ‘revolt’ to ‘revolution’ which she claims has been reduced to political rebellion. Revolt, rather than rebelling against one regime in order to overthrow it and establish a new order, is, for her, a continuous state of questioning.

FRONT re-enacted a dinner party conversation that I had in my house in the late 90s. I asked for volunteers to be the cast of 5 additional characters, they were given name tags to wear around their necks, a glass of prosecco and introduced as: the Carpenter, Housewife, Physiotherapist, Doctor and Teacher with some added minimal biographical details. I provided some background: how my partner (the Teacher), (a man without boundaries), had previous to the party had (inappropriate) discussions with two of the guests concerning body hair and how they had consequently recommended an appropriate cream. I then re-enacted the conversation at the dinner party about the effectiveness of this solution, where I pulled a stunt.

* Julia Kristeva, Revolt, She Said, trans. by Brian O’Keefe, New York: Semiotexte, 2002.

Commissioned For

Devised in response to Revolt She Said: The Subjectivities and Feminism Research Group’s Cabaret for international Women’s Day, at Chelsea College of Arts; and re-enacted for the closing party at the Feminist Library.

Location

Chelsea College of Art and the Feminist Library, London.

Collaborators

audience participation

Credits

photography: David Crawforth

links

SALON: a Salon for a Speculative Future publication. Editors:Monika Oechsler & Sharon Kivland

Related Artworks

Swimming Pool, 2020