BRAINSTORMS
White Fragility / 2020
These photographs were captured at the conclusion of live performances of performances of Joan Didion’s The White Album in five cities from 2018 - 2020. During the performance, a small portion of the audience (about 20 students, activists, and artists) participated in the show onstage with performers, mostly within a sound-sealed, glass-fronted room. Among their activities, these participants brainstormed what they wanted to see change in the world, writing their ideas on the white wall of this room.
This activity was interrupted by a performer playing a police officer, who instigated a balletic, grand guignol-style shoot-out with a performer playing a protestor. Wearing custom built, remotely-triggered pneumatic squib suits disguised in their costumes, these two performers splattered the walls of the room with fake blood, resulting in a collaborative action painting melding with the participants’ grafitied brainstorms. These images evoke the violence directed at acts of protest, and crime scene photography of school shootings.
Exhibition, The Sydney Festival
The White Album. Sydney, Australia
Structure design by P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S Architects
January 2020
The White Album. Sydney, Australia
Structure design by P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S Architects
January 2020
