Florence Peake 'The Keeners', 2015. Courtesy of the artist and commissioned by SPACE.
Image credit Tim Bowditch.
Performance in London Fields, E8 : Saturday 19 Sept, 12noon-4pm
(If raining, the performance will move to Space Studios, Mare St E8 3RH
Exhibition of film and objects from the performance launches on Thursday 1 Oct, 6–8pm
and runs until 1 December.
The Keeners takes its title from the notion of ‘keening’, where professional mourners in Irish and Celtic traditions grieve others' losses on their behalf. Peake’s work abstracts this tradition and presents a collective grief in the form of a public performance to mourn the commodification and instrumentalisation of art in the corporate world, enacted by a chorus of dancers on a glossy mirrored dance floor.
A public open call asked for people to submit notions of what they feel they have lost culturally. Every one of these submissions is read out and then mourned by the dancers. The performance is situated in London Fields, which is classified as common land (Lammas Rights for grazing animals), and links to its history as a plague burial site.
Highlighting a framework of collective support and a platform for discussing the notion of ‘artwashing’, personal ethics and moral dilemmas the piece is also a playful and slyly ironic comment on the hypocrisy that faces us in daily life.
A commissioned essay on The Keeners written by Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt will be available online and at SPACE.
The Keeners is by Florence Peake. Performed by Charlie Ashwell, Lizzie Lequesne, Susanna Recchia, Nikki Tomlinson, Rosalie Wahlfrid
