DIY: 2012 – At the edge of the land, of practice, and of knowing

Zierle & Carter
At the edge of the land, of practice, and of knowing

West Penwith, Cornwall

DIY 9: 2012 – Call for Participants

Taking flight or the fall? Exploring ‘the edge’ as departure point to the not yet known.

Project summary:
This three full day (four nights) intensive workshop will explore, in a sensorial and experiential way, what it is like to be out at the very periphery of a ‘bleak and rugged land’ – where historically experimentation, innovation, pioneering, radicality and alternative methods/philosophies have emerged strongly and are embedded in an ancient, seemingly ‘untouched’ landscape. Working site and context specific, we will be mapping the psycho-geographical landscape through our bodies and actions, trying to find our inner edge through exploring the outer edges, stepping into the spaces in-between land and water. Through body centred and material-led exercises/experimentations at sites along the West Penwith coastline, the workshop’s activities respond to the complex context and multiple realities revealed by being at the edge. Inhabiting a different space/site each day, the intention is to ‘get under the skin’ of what Cornwall ‘means’, ‘what it is’, and what its legacies are today; reflecting on its long industrial history, rich with processes of extracting, breaking down and filtering out, melting down and transforming. With a guided walk by the National Trust, an opportunity to ‘go underground’ and contextualising talks/presentations by local experts and residents, we will be working with the post-industrial legacy (disused mining sites), introducing durational processes – embedding and ‘anchoring’ actions back into the contemporary narrative of the landscape. We will adopt a peer support and skill sharing approach.

Dates, times and location:
Evening of Saturday 4 to Morning of Wednesday 8 August, 2012
10am – 9pm daily (on the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday).

At various sites of historical/contextual significance around West Penwith, Cornwall.

Based from our accommodation at Carnyorth Environmental Educational Centre, daily site visits will be made by foot and by minibus.

Nearest Train Station: Penzance (the ‘end of the line’), Cornwall.

Application procedure:
Applications welcome from practitioners from all levels of experience working within contemporary performance/cross interdisciplinary artforms. Please submit a short statement (approx. 500 words) that includes a description of your practice, an indication of a strong interest in the location and context specificity of the workshop and/or in durational, site-specific, process based and/or material-led enquiries, as well as how you feel you could contribute to the group. Include any relevant websites/links to your work and your email address and phone number. Send up to five related or representative images (no larger than 2MB each) with your statement [email protected] (cc’d to [email protected]) with ‘DIY 9’ in the subject line. For videos/sound please send as links in your application. There are 12 places available, with six places allocated for Southwest based practitioners.

Application deadline: Monday 9 July 2012.

The artist:
Zierle & Carter are experienced workshop leaders, lecturers and project managers. As artists, they critically examine different modes of communication and what it means to be human, addressing notions of belonging, dynamics within relationships, and the transformation of limitations. Their work sites an embodied investigation into human interactions and encounters, acting as an invitation to venture into the spaces in-between the external and internal, permanent and transient, spoken and unheard. The work fundamentally explores society’s conventions, traditions and rituals, often flipping them on their head, reversing orders and disrupting the norm. Working internationally, their site-specific work takes on many guises and has been shown in galleries, in cupboards, empty cinemas, busy shopping areas, city parks, in libraries, tunnels, World War 2 bunkers, and created from working nomadically in wilderness – on snow covered mountain plateaus, at craters of volcanoes, and on the edge of a stormy cliff. For further info see http://www.zierlecarterliveart.com or http://throughtheheartperformances.tumblr.com

Contact information:
Please feel free to contact us on [email protected] with any questions you might have about the workshop.

This DIY project is supported by The Works, Dance and Theatre Cornwall.

This project was a response to the DIY 9 Call for Proposals