08.07.08 kulturnatib

Art and asking

After some months of hiatus, I shall, tomorrow, pick up where I left off performance art-wise. I did actually do a performance for a group of Filipinos and other Canadian guests who were part of the annual human rights training conducted by the Equitas a human rights training NGO in Montreal last June.

For that one I did a performance that had its world premier at the Outpost Restaurant in 2007, entitled, “My Rice Is Nice.” It was in support of the 'No to GMO Rice' by Greenpeace, a campaign that is facing an uphill battle especially with the current food crisis, where GMOs are touted as a solution. I thought it was fitting for that Montreal audience since access to food is definitely a human right.

The performance tomorrow will be more similar than different. Similar because it will partake of some elements that have been central to many of my previous performances. Chief of them being that it will be participative.

Food will again be a central element in tomorrow's performance but it won't be food as subject but food as object. As such the operative relationship towards it will be defined by the verb to eat.

My performance then involves eating. The title is, “The Last Supper / La Dernière Cène.” Reference to that last supper most of us are familiar with are as tangential as the fact that 12 members of the general audience will be invited to join me for a meal of noodle soup is incidental.

The noodle in the soup, however, is pivotal. It will be of the alphabet kind that continues to be enjoyed by children and some parents who think that eating them actually nourishes better reading and writing.

More than reading and writing, what I hope for the noodles to nourish is thinking. Skeptical thinking.

This is what the performance statement says: In the New Testament, St John the Evangelist, says 'In the beginning was the Word.' Since then words have poured forth from men and women that have served as foundations for their creations, institutions and actions.

Many of these words have turned out to be misleading, erroneous or downright lies. In some cases they have been acknowledged as such. These words are then said to have been eaten.

But, in many more cases such deception, error, or lies have not been acknowledged. In fact, they continue to enjoy widespread circulation and support.

Eating these words might not mitigate their effects nor lessen their stranglehold but at the very least it could lead to a state of healthy skepticism.

Most of these words are of the kind that will be closer to what I think is the particular historical experience of most of the expected audience or of the performance venue which is across the Canadian Parliament. As is easily imaginable, there is nothing objective about the choice of these words.

I have to admit, too, that none of these words have anything to do with art, which, there are, if an artist is to be honest, a lot to be skeptical about. Yet, no longer so much, I'm finding, about the viability of performance art as practice for me here and, with growing confidence for my comrades in art, there as well.