1. Introduction

“You better believe in ghosts
Because soon enough you too will become a ghost”

- Latifa Laâbiss (2013) ‘Loredreamsong’, in Scores #3, uneasy going, Tanzquartier Wien. Available online at https://monoskop.org/images/8/81/Scores_3_2013_Uneasy_Going.pdf

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Ghosting was a two-day workshop in which over twenty artists, performers, producers, thinkers and critics gathered to haunt institutional space. It took place at Toynbee Studios in London in October 2019, was hosted by (the formerly named) Channing Tatum, and was commissioned by the Live Art Development Agency through their annual DIY programme.

Toynbee Studios is a complex space. It is the home of Artsadmin, an organisation that supports experimental performance through funding, studio space, producing, touring support and industry advocacy. Alongside Artsadmin’s offices, the multi-story building contains performance studios available for short-term hire, long-term tenants (mostly offices of independent cultural organisations and a few artists studios), a theatre, a public café, grubby walls, a lift that breaks if you hold the doors open, and a labyrinthine basement.

The workshop advertised itself through an open call for participants as “a (dis)embodied haunting of institutional space”, addressing “uncertainty, bad feeling, and the histories we’d rather forget.” In 2019, Artsadmin celebrated its 40th year. Its founder and long-term director retired. Due to various incidents and structural failures (some made public, and some not: https://www.artsadmin.co.uk/blog/340/a-letter-to-artists-audiences-and-partners) many artists dropped out of their ‘Two Degrees’ festival and Bursary programme. Two members of their Artist Development team resigned the evening before Ghosting’s call-out for participants was made public. The many meetings and emails leading up the project were infused with a deep sense of fragility, nervousness and risk.

The workshop attracted many applicants with diverse interests. Some of them had a long history with Artsadmin, and some had never heard of the organisation before. Over a Sunday and Monday, participants met one another, transformed themselves into ghosts, and went out to haunt the building in long durations: wandering, testing, lingering, interrupting, or just generally hanging out or being a mild nuisance. They returned to eat, discuss, question, challenge, and then set out to haunt some more.

Some of the ghosts made use of twelve disposable cameras we had placed around the building. The twelve folders of this publication contain the images we found on them. We find these photos entrancing, disturbing, sexy, and beautiful. The accompanying texts were mostly written by us – Rohanne Udall and Paul Hughes – over winter 2019/2020. Alongside quotes from participants, and one piece of invited writing by Mira Kautto, these texts predominantly reflect our understanding, anxieties and learning as organisers of this project. Without any singular aim, argument or conclusion, we wanted this writing to tease out some of the different questions that lead up to and follow on from these images. We learned a lot from these ghosts, and hope these materials can share some of their ferocious thinking with you.

The Ghosting participants were: Katy Baird, Sonia Barrett, Juliet Davis-Dufayard, Heather Davison, Nandita Ghose, Sascha Goslin, Katherine Hall, Donald Hutera, Anna Jarosz, Dabin Kim, Elinor Lewis, Zhuoer Lin, Lynn Lu, Hamish MacPherson, Philip Magee, Anders Morris Knight, Becky Morris Knight, Alisa Oleva, Louise Riou-Djukic, Kelly Sweeney, Lady Helena Vortex and Emily Warner.

The practice of Ghosting was originally developed in spring 2018 through conversation with Mira Kautto, Elinor Lewis, Hamish MacPherson and Hannah Parsons, in space generously offered by Dance4 in Nottingham.

With spectral love and lingering doubts,


Rohanne Udall and Paul Hughes
Chatum Tanning
www.chatumtanning.info
September 2020