Live Art Development Agency is delighted to announce an open call for applications to

Rocio Boliver (Mexico), Between Menopause and Old Age, Alternative Beauty – A Workshop

Monday 23 to Saturday 28 November, 2015, London

Deadline for applications Wednesday 30 September.

What is it?

The acclaimed Mexican performance artist Rocio Boliver will run a unique workshop for ten older women artists.

“My workshop aims to demystify “the horror of old age”, inventing my own deranged aesthetic and moral solutions for the “problem of age.” I hope my mockery of this absurd contemporary reality exposes a broken society based on looks and how old age became synonymous with insult.” Rocio Boliver

This practical workshop will focus on the possibilities of collaborative approaches and the ways in which working together might open up new possibilities for representations and understandings of some of the issues facing women artists, and particularly older women artists, including the ageing body, disempowerment, and invisibility.

The workshop is free to participate in, and all materials and a daily lunch will be provided.

When is it?

The workshop will run from Monday 23 to Friday 27 November from 12 noon to 6pm daily at Apiary Studios in Hackney, London.

It will culminate in a collaborative performance/live event with Rocio Boliver and all the workshop participants, at 9pm on Saturday 28 November. The event will be part of Old Dears, a LADA public programme on feminism and age at Chelsea Theatre in West London.

Who is it for?

The workshop is aimed at women over the age of 45 or who identify as ‘older’.  

Participants must have some knowledge and experience of Live Art/performance art.

Artists from across the UK and based internationally are welcome to apply but are responsible for their own travel to, and accommodation costs, in London.   

Rocio is looking for “warriors, powerful, transgressive women”. If that’s you, then please do look at the guidelines and fill in an application form. Applicants will be notified by 14 October if they have been offered a place on the workshop.

Participants must be able to commit to all five workshop days and to the public performance.

Contexts

Rocio Boliver’s practice is a sharp and focused critique of the many repressive ideologies that burden the lives of women in Mexico. “In this pasteurized society, I prefer to cause disgust, hatred, rejection, confusion, weariness, anxiety, hostility, fear … to further promote mental asepsis.” From 1992 to date, Boliver has made performances in Mexico and in festivals in Europe, Asia, North and South America, including Grace Exhibition Space, New York and City of Women Festival, Slovenia. She has recently been awarded the Scholarship Promotion Projects and Joint Ventures FONCA Cultural granted by National Council for Culture and the Arts.

Rocio’s workshop relates to two key strands of LADA programmes:

The workshop is part of the research project Restock, Rethink, Reflect Three (2012 -2015) which maps and marks the impact of performance on feminist histories and the contribution of artists to discourses around contemporary gender politics. RRR3 has involved collaborations with UK and European partners on publishing and archival projects, and programmes on the ‘performance of gender’ and on ‘feminism and ageing’.

The workshop is also part of LADA’s programme for CAPP (Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme), a four year research project on collaborative practices funded by Creative Europe. CAPP partners: Create Ireland (Dublin, Ireland), Agora (Berlin, Germany), Heart of Glass (Liverpool, GB), Kunsthalle Osnabrück (Osnabrück, Germany), Live Art Development Agency (London, GB), Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, GB), Ludwig Múzeum (Budapest, Hungary), m-cult (Helsinki, Finland) and hablarenarte: (Madrid, Spain).