DIY: 2014 – Stacy Makishi ‘Uncivil Partnership’

Stacy Makishi wants to marry you! But since this is DIY, go marry yourself.

The deadline for this project has now passed.

Project Summary:
Introducing DIY-Uncivil Partnership! Uncivil Partnership is a radical workshop/wedding ceremony that splices artists with every bit of themselves, for better or for worse. This never-before workshop helps artists meet and fall in love with their “most uncivilized” parts, in order to create their most unrealized art!

For many artists, our love affair with art is too quickly extinguished for fear of not getting it perfect. In our hopeless desire to appear as Mx Right to ourselves, we grow disenchanted by our own misshaped uniqueness. The very qualities that first attracted us to making art have somehow grown threatening. These attributes are suddenly concealed and placed under tight control. The more we control our art, the duller our relationship becomes. We no longer take risks, things go stale, and sadly, the relationship quickly loses its magic.

Un-Civil Partnership will unite artists with the uncivil parts of their art. It will be a four-day series of discussions, talks, and workshops that offer practical exercises to explore the idea of what it means to be 'Uncivil' in art practice. It will also reclaim the art of ceremony, rites of passage, and marriage as an exploration towards wholeness.

On bended knees, artists will propose marriage to themselves. They will receive marriage counseling, create vows of commitment, and then, (here’s the great part) they really get married at Newington Green Church! But wait there’s more! Later that night, there’s a huge reception!

When we can finally lift the veil to who we truly are, we will arrive at what Hawaiians call Pono. Pono is a polysemous word that has strong cultural and spiritual connotations of “wholeness, harmony, balance and integrity”. When an artist reaches a state of pono, there are no contradictions of belief, ideas or values. An artist can take bigger risks and their work can grow fierce.

Unnatural coupling never felt so good!

Dates, times, location(s):
Saturday August 30th and Sunday 31st, 1pm – 4pm (both days).
Venue: New Unity Church, 277A Upper Street, Islington, London N1, 2TZ.

Saturday September 6th, 1pm – 4pm.
Venue: New Unity Church – Newington Green, 39 A Newington Green, London, N16 9PR.

The Wedding!
Sunday September 7th, 7 pm – whenever
Venue: New Unity Church – Newington Green, 39 A Newington Green, LondoN, N16 9PR

Application procedure:
Please, on bended knee propose to me in a letter:

• a paragraph that simply explains what part of your art or practice is uncivil? What parts need to be wed?

• a paragraph on why exploring the transformation of personal experience into artistic practice is of interest to you?

• a paragraph about you and why you need to take this workshop.

CV optional.

Uncivil Partnership is for anyone with an open heart and a willingness to commit, for better or for worse, till death do us part.

Please send your proposals to Stacy Makishi cc'ing Aaron Wright.

Deadline, noon, Tuesday June 24th.

The artist:
Stacy Makishi is a transplant from Hawaii who found paradise in Dalston, London in 1993. After graduating from the University of Hawaii she worked as a stand-up comic at the Comedy Store. But when her punchlines punched back, Stacy found herself happiest when making what New Yorkers called Performance. When she eventually washed up on English shores, Stacy began to work in diverse disciplines; her present work is the result of cross-fertilization between theatre, comedy, film and visual art. Perhaps it is hard to pigeon-hole because the work has grown out of so many genres and media. It is as complex as it is accessible; humorous as it challenging; visual as it is literate. Over the past decade, Stacy Makishi has been awarded an ICA Attached Artist Award, Millennium Fellowship Award, a Live Art Development Agency One to One Bursary, an Artsadmin Bursary and the Franklin Furnace Award. She is an Associate Artist with Artsadmin, Chelsea Theatre and New Unity.
http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/artists/stacy-makishi
http://www.stacymakishi.com/

Contact:
Stacy Makishi

This project is part of DIY 11: 2014 and is supported by Duckie.