On Thursday we traveled to Birmingham, the UK's second largest city, to see a show our department had arranged as part of our initial induction to 'International Performance Research'. Frankly, I had much preferred to be napping or catching up with correspondence. The morning lectures and afternoon group sessions proved to be an exhaustive process. While they were a valuable way to kick the academic juices back into flow after the leisurely summer months, I still felt like I hadn't totally 'caught up' after leaving Canada and spending five crazy days in France.
When we arrived, the professors told us that the show was more of an 'art installation' that we could walk through at our own pace. There is a certain prejudice against 'installation' pieces, of which I find myself sometimes guilty, that stems from the fear that an installation allows an artist more license to put together 'an experience' that has the ability to shock or provoke. Without the clear separation of performer and spectator, where the artist continually interacts/confronts those viewing, an art installation has always carried that bold weight: here I am, like me or not, I don't care. The other concept of viewing an installation that makes some uncomfortable is that the spectator must work; their willingness to engage with that which they are viewing determines their experience.
As yet another event in an already busy induction week I was a little dismayed that I could not settle into a darkened theatre and watch a performance. To my surprise, the performance proved to be the most interesting and thought provoking 'installation' I've had the pleasure of attending. The show is called "Of All The People In All The World" and is produced by a theatre company called Stan's Cafe which was formed in 1991 in Birmingham.
Upon entering the show each spectator is given a single grain of rice. The program prepares you for how this single grain is representative of a single human being. Thus, you equal one grain of rice. Why is this important? The program explains: "Gathered here are 6.7 billion grains of rice, a grain for each person on the planet. Through the course of our performance this rice will be subdivided to represent a range of population statistics. These statistics are drawn from the most reputable sources available and are as up to date as possible."
As you explore the building housing the installation, once a metalworks factory, you come in contact with piles and pyramids of rice - 112 tonnes of rice to be exact. The rice is split into interesting population statistics (of countries and groups of people), times in history (the population of the world at 1AD for example), and significant historical events (the number of people in attendance to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak). It would have been impossible for me to have pictured what 6.7 billion grains of rice would have looked like before the exhibit, but what the piles of grains make possible is a physical representation of meaning that a 2D number on a page cannot convey.
I felt a tinge of patriotism to see that Canada had its own pile - a grain of rice for every 33.4 million of us. Some of the accompanying Canadian piles were quite interesting: those who migrated to Canada during the Vietnam war, those who migrated to Canada during the Vietnam war and stayed, the number of RCMP officers, and the group of brave souls who have gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survived.
The most interesting aspect of the installation was the range of feelings that staring at piles of rice with an accompanying statistic would provoke. While some of the selections were quite funny - Eva Peron, Brangelina, and the Palin family had their own groupings in relation to an overarching group of piles - some of the depections were quite thought-provoking. Seeing the number of people killed in the Holocaust and the number of Africans who die everyday from HIV/AIDS represented in a pile of rice cannot help but encourage reflection. Not only did rice, a material which is a staple food for the majority of the world's population, provide a better representation of the statistics than a number ever could, but the single grain received upon entry puts the spectator in direct relation to the 6.7 billion other grains they encounter.
It's no wonder the show has toured the world. It demands of the participants to consider the significance of the single grain they hold. Not only is one encouraged to find humbleness in the installation, but it challenges spectators to find themselves among the grains.
An extra prescription for the day: Check it out, http://stanscafe.co.uk/ .
1 comment:
It's amazing to think of how the media deals with rice.. Far too much attention on Palin, for example, vs. Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis. What makes her singular grain so much more important than the enormous pile of the ignored continent in need of so much aid?
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