SŁUPSK

Part of Poland-UK Live Art Exchange.

A performance in Tullie House Gallery, Carlisle for an audience mainly composed of local people and Polish and UK artists.

I have never been to SŁUPSK. But I follow the news. I have my snatches of geography and history, my dreams and prejudices. AND I've got all the photographs. So of course I know what it's like...

The performance took the form of a Power Point presentation, ostensibly about the city of Słupsk in Poland. It was in fact a humorous inquiry into the ways in which our general ignorance of other countries opens up space for a strange mix of bigotry and romantic fantasy. How can we do other than locate new experiences in terms of previous ones and interpret the 'foreign' in relationship to home? All the images of 'Słupsk' were taken in within a few minutes walk of the gallery in Carlisle. Apart from the ‘map’ which proved worryingly prophetic.

performance video stills