CHAOS

Artists: Sinéad O’Donnell (Belfast), Sandra Johnston (Belfast), Pauline Cummins (Dublin), Poshya Kakl (Iraq) and Lori Weidenhammer & Anakana Schofield (Vancouver)

Date: September 22 to 25, 2010

CHAOS brought an international group of artists together for a week of performance in Victoria as the second half of an exchange that saw a group of Canadian artists perform in Belfast with the support of artist-run centre Bbeyond. The artists involved in this version of the event created performance works that exposed the absurdity and inflated expectations of the accelerated lifestyles we have come to accept as compulsory.

Sinéad O'Donnell's performance for CHAOS, 2010 (Photo: Dallas Duobaitis)

Women, particularly European and North American women, who’ve been told that they can “have it all”, have become intimately familiar with the nature of chaos. The continual juggling of tasks and personas at work and at home has put women in a unique position to identify practical applications of chaos, not just as an intellectual construct. The women who participated in CHAOS explored the underlying structurres and complexities of chaos by playing in it and with it.  explore the underlying structures and complexities of chaos by playing in it and with it.

Curated by Sinéad O'Donnell (Belfast), John G Boehme and Judith Price (both Victoria), CHAOS succeeded as both an international collaboration and a dynamic performance event here in Victoria. Open Space has a history of presenting performance and time-based works by local, regional, national and international artists. The visiting artists of CHAOS recognized our attention to the discipline and professionalism in being able to host work of this nature as well as nurture a responsive audience.

A special note to the Victoria version of CHAOS was the inclusion of Pshya Kakl of Iraq who was able to participatei n the event by performing here at Open Space via Skype video. Her performance was projected onto the space giving the local audience an exclusive look at the challenges that many international artists face with immaigration restrictions and other forms of oppression that continue to challenge artists in this day and age. Overcoming customary technical difficulties Open Space was pleased to be able to facilitate Kakl's work in the space, adding another poignant moment to the extraordinary proggram.

The ongoing CHAOS project was also supported by a publication that provided a document of the project accompanied by a critical essay, highlighting the performances that took place here at Open Space and the Maritime Museum, the site of Sandra Johnston's enigmatic work. Grace Salez, a member of MediaNet, documented the event and created a DVD for the artists of their work. Salez worked closely with the artists and other volunteers to establish a framework for capturing the work of different artists. The  DVD that was made available as part of the publication.

Schedule of Events

Wednesday, September 22, 7pm - Camosun College, Fisher Building, Rm 100
Artist Talks by Sinéad O’Donnell, Sandra Johnston, Pauline Cummins

Friday, September 24 - Open Space, 510 Fort Street
7pm Reception at Open Space followed by performances

Lori Weidenhammer & Anakana Schofield  Big Mamas Riding High: Two artists constructed and deconstructed the private and public performance of motherhood. Through actions, readings, and audience engagement the performers tackled the politics of porn, the absurdity of the domestic, the pleasures of beekeeping and the joy of gymnastics.

Sinéad O’Donnell's wprl was informed by her interest in determining reponses to complex actions and situations through confrontations of matter, memory, site and space, while her process and methodology considered ideas of timing, spontaneity and intuition. For CHAOS O'Donnell exercized stress and tension, juxtaposing a soundtrack with the gravity of a stack of dinner plates.

Poshya Kakl  is one of the most progressive young women performance artists currently working in Kurdistan, Iraq. Kakl’s artwork deals with her living reality, and reflects systems of kinship, gender, religion, barriers and borders. Participating across borders and ignoring barriers, Kakl performed as part of  CHAOS from Iraq using the internet Skype boradcast into the main gallery, accompanied by a tableau of threads and sountrack.
Broadcast via Skype

Saturday, September 25 - Open Space, 510 Fort Street
7pm Reception at Open Space followed by performances

Sandra Johnston - (with) INTENT - Johnston developed a series of actions that reflected on questions of creative improvisation, paralleled with processes of judicial inquiry. In considering forms of evidence, a legal jury must consider “intent”- essentially an assessment of a person’s motives, or state of mind when committing to an action. During this performance a series of actions was undertaken firstly as improvised and therefore unfamiliar acts, which were subsequently re-entered, the second time with a more developed sense of intent, or knowledge.
Location: Maritime Museum, Victorian Courtroom

Pauline Cummins - Sound the Alarm, a 45-minute performance with sound and video elements. This performance dealt with the question of power/powerlessness. It explored visually and aurally the feelings that attend the loss of innocence for the individual, and for a society. Trumpet accompaniment by Lorae Farrell.

Admission to performances by donation.

Artist links:
Sinéad O’Donnell  http://sineadodonnell.com
Sandra Johnston - http://www.bbeyondperformance.org/members.php#sandra
Pauline Cummins - http://www.paulinecummins.com
Poshya Kakl - http://pavescrossingzones.blogspot.com/2010/05/poshya-kakl-15th-may-2010-crossing.html
Lori Weidenhammer - http://beespeakersaijiki.blogspot.com
Anakana Schofield - http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/author/anakana-schofield