Study Room in Exile
The Study Room is the core resource of LADA and is a free, open access research facility in London, housing one of the largest publicly accessible libraries of Live Art related videos, DVDs and publications in the world used by artists, students, curators, academics and other arts professionals.
Study Room in Exile is LADA’s satellite study room housed in the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home in Liverpool.
The Study Room in Exile is open on Mondays and Tuesdays. Email the Istitute to book a visit.
View the Study Room in Exile library catalogue on libib (full list of the items that the Institute currently holds).
Design work for The Study Room in Exile was provided by Studio Polpo, Sheffield.
Upcoming events:
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Past events:
Motherhood and Live Art 2: Are we screwing the kids up?
This event, organized by Miffy Ryan at the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home’s LADA Study Room in Exile in Liverpool on Saturday 29 April, 11am – 2pm. The focus of this group was maternal ethics, the notion of being overspent, tired of some real or imagined ethical standards, the guilt.
Each participant was asked to prepare a 5 min presentation on their maternal live art practice and address some of the issues outlined above.
Documentation from the first meeting Motherhood & Live Art, organized by Emily Underwood-Lee and Lena Simic in the Study Room in Exile in January 2016 can be found here
Live Art and Motherhood: Study Room Guide on Live Art and the Maternal is available for free to download.
The Anarchist Stammer
Ste Higginson delivered his performative lecture ‘The Anarchist Stammer’ AND his play The Anarchist Sunday School on Sunday 18 September 2016. Ste treated us to a reading of Act 2 – to a packed and appreciative Institute. While the children played around the house under Gabriel’s expert supervision, the adults nattered passionately about the politics both inside and outside the play, Corbyn’s impending victory and a possible full reading of The Anarchist Sunday School in the near future. Diaries were opened and November pencilled in as a possible space-time to make it happen. The Anarchist Sunday School play now takes pride of place in the Study Room in Exile.
The Study Room in Exile at Green Park
The Study Room in Exile traveled to Performance Biennial NO FUTURE at Green Park, Athens, when radicals get together for conferences and symposiums they are sometimes accused of ‘preaching to the converted’. These aural encounters suggest that the diversity of thought in such groups is rich and varied and multiple. The question was simple: ‘What’s on your mind these days?’ The answers come in all shapes and sizes. The Institute humbly thank Gigi, Kostas and Vassilis for bringing people together at Green Park and for all the nuance and insight the 21 different voices provide in these recordings.
The Voices of Green park are available here:
‘Women Of Europe’ Event
The ‘Women Of Europe’ event took place on 27 July 2016.
The partcipants gathered for the event were Annalaura from Italy, Gergana from Bulgaria, Kathrin from Germany, Lorena from Spain, Niamh from Ireland, Sidsel from Denmark, Zoe from Greece, Zoë from the UK. The gathering took place in the aftermath of the EU referendum. At the call of Annalaura, the women watched Rosi Braidotti’s address at the European Parliament on 27 March 2013, or as Braidotti calls it, her ‘love poem to the European Union’ prior to the meeting.
The event was chaired by Lena from Croatia.
The Women of Europe documentaion write up is available here:
‘Motherhood and Live Art’ Gathering
The ‘Motherhood and Live Art’ took place on Friday 29 January 2016 from 6pm to 9pm.
This event gathered an invited group of live art and performance practitioners who are working with/around the maternal in their arts practice. All invited participants were asked to briefly introduce their ‘maternal performance practice’ and reflect on their aesthetics, including their processes and methodologies.
The event was chaired by Lena Simic and Emily Underwood-Lee.
Our mother/artist participants were: Clare Qualmann, Chloé Déchery (in absentia), Deej Fabyc, Emily Orley, Grace Surman, Helena Walsh, Helen Sargeant, Jennifer Verson, Katja Hilevaara, Lizzie Philps, Mary Paterson (in absentia), Miffy Ryan, Sarah Black, Tracy Evans and Zoë Gingell
Discussion revolved around these questions:
* Can we talk about ‘maternal performance aesthetics’? Is it useful? Are there any recurrent patterns in ‘maternal performance aesthetics’?
* What is specific about motherhood being ‘represented’ through live art/performance? What are recurrent themes in such re-presentations/re-enactments/re-figurations? How do the lived and the staged collide?
* What are the politics of ‘maternal performance making’, the politics of making work whilst at the same time looking after the children?
* What are the maternal artists’ processes and methodologies? Are there any networks of support, specifically aimed at mother/artists working in the medium of live art/contemporary performance?
Motherhood and Live Art documentation write-up compiled by Lena Simic and Emily Underwood-Lee is available here:
The Institute had £450 towards traveling expenses and refreshments for Motherhood and Live Art event and this was distributed among everyone who attended and needed it.
Launch Event
The launch of the Study Room in Exile took place on Wednesday 30 September 2015 at the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home.
In the lead up to the launch, Gary and Lena from the Institute created a performative paper called ‘Study.Room.In.Exile.’ This paper was written collaboratively during a seven day separation from each other: Lena wrote from the domestic sphere where she digested seven LADA publications (all donated to the Institute by LADA), whilst Gary wrote from Athens where he attended the ‘Institutions, Politics, Performance’ conference. Gary was concerned with Exile and Lena with Study.
The performative paper from the event can be viewed here:
The recording of the Launch Event can be listened to here:
Further Info:
The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home
The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home is a space for dissenting the Capitalism of Culture. It has hosted a number of events, residencies and conversations from 2008 and is interested to discuss homemade aesthetics, the private/the public, the familial, class and money matters. The Institute is open to visits, proposals for projects, performances, discussions, screenings, residencies, exhibitions, actions and presentations. Email them at [email protected].
The Institute’s running budget for this year is 10% of twoaddthree’s combined annual net income (i.e. two lectureship salaries, some freelance work, tax credits and child benefit) which currently stands at makes it approximately £3,670 – this is an increase from the year 2008 when the Institute annual budget was £2,857.10, but a decrease from 2013 when its budget was £5,100. Adults in the Institute now work full time as lecturers – they used to be on 0.5 – but in 2014, the mother is on maternity leave. We anticipate that this budget (£306 a month in 2014) will provide a nominal fee for invited artists, cultural activists and speakers to cover their expenses. The Institute is committed to financial transparency and all events are free for audiences.
