Today I met with both Steve and Conan to discuss my performance whilst in my space, bringing with me all my materials and my script. However after a discussion with both it became apparent that actually my performance was not specific enough to my site neither did it meet the requirements of the module. So it became apparent that I had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time.
I decided to go back to all my original notes and ideas, reading through my original notes I realised my performance is less about what the suffragettes would be fighting about now, but the idea of having a voice and fighting for your opinion. The suffragettes fought for suffrage, which means the right to vote. The Suffragettes used Speaker’s Corner/ the Cornhill to hold a rally in 1908, for support to pass the Suffrage Bill. They used this site to air their voice. Today, Speaker’s corner, is our designated location of political activism, for the public to air their voice. Yet looking back on my notes on my visits to my site it became obvious to me that the commercialisation of the space was more important than the political activism of the space. Each time I visited there has been a new ‘pop up’ internet shop or fairground in the centre. Neither, encourage the public to air their voice but want to entice us for our money. We’ve aloud for our space of political activism to be over consumed by the ever growing ideal of capitalism and commercialisation. Just recently, the traditional outdoor market (the other side of the cornhill) has been closed down as the CO-OP have brought it out to build a new shop, leaving many out of jobs and loosing a part of the cities heritage.
Personally, I see the suffragette’s fight for vote, a fight for equality which is still an issue in Lincoln. There is an ever obvious inequality between big companies and small traditional markets. We’ve allowed for commercialisation and capitalism to become more important than the use of our voice. I want to remind the public and the audience the importance of the space, from the famous suffragette rally to it being named our official stage for political activism. I’ve been very intrigued by the Situationist and their artistic, political activist approach. From research the Situationist, I came across a beautiful academic article which explained my approach and whole idea properly; “But theories are only made to die in the war of time” (Shukaitis, 2013). Relating this to Speaker’s Corner its become clear that the idea of having a place of political activism was just an ideal, that over at the time was exciting and new, just like the Suffragette rally was in 1908, but presently seems unimportant to our everyday uses of the site. From this I have decided to do more research it what makes a site a place or a non place and apply these theories to my site. I’m also keen in the idea of a silent protest, I’ve designed and built myself some ‘sandwich’ bored styled placards, which I will wear as I walk around the space that was once the stage for the suffragette movement. On one side I will have a quote/slogan which the suffragettes themselves used when protesting for their bill and on the other side I will have con-temporised this quote/slogan to protest the current issues of commercialisation/capitalism/inequality and the lack of potential activism. I will then move to the other end of the site, in which the mayor named the Cornhill “Speaker’s corner” and make the same journey around his stage wearing the same placard. I plan on doing this circuit of both ‘stages’ two/three times with sandwich boards that have already been designed, but for my final journey invite my audience to write on both sides sandwich board, so when I make my final journey of this circuit I will physically be carrying/ silently but actively broadcasting the public’s political views and free speech, using the site as the purpose expects, linking both the past and present together, from the inspiration of the suffragette movement which lead to the naming of Speaker’s Corner to ignoring what ever ‘pop up shop’ may be present and focusing on our political activism as an equal city.
My next step is to build and design these sandwich boards, trial it in my site and also research the following: Barbara Kruger, Gurrila Girls, Situationist international, Guy Debord, Mike Pearson’s guided tours, Nicolas Bourniud, as well as researching works on politically reworking the city.
Leave a comment