Charizard

A lecture-performance for camera, in which we speak across four different projects – Ghosting (2019), In Agreement With… (2021), Demonology and Any Other Business (both 2023) – to think about how freelance and salaried workers might understand their sense of belonging and investment within publicly-funded arts institutions. We invoke four figures (the Ghost, the Guest Host, the Demon and the Steward) through which we can make sense of our precarity, dependence, agency, permission, responsibility and care.

This project was first commissioned by Primary and a-n in March 2023 for an online conference. Originally designed for Zoom, we have adapted the work to a video format that can be shared online for a wider audience.

We really appreciated the invitation to write this text, and to reflect on a substantial body of work over the past 5 years. These four projects range from participatory workshop, to performance, to a book of poetry, and a exhibition of sculpture, embroidery and print – but in reflecting on them as a series, they form a surprisingly comprehensive enquiry that has consistently pursued a set of questions about institutional practice. 

Lecture-performance: First presented at Nottingham Assembly: Collaborative Programming, by a-n and Primary, March 2023.

You can access a transcript of the talk here.