Alternate Languages
Venice Architecture Biennale 2018
Saturday 24 November - Sunday 25 November 2018
British Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy
Free with entry to the Giardini, Venice Architecture Biennale.
In collaboration with
Join the Royal Academy in Venice as we activate the ‘Freespace’ of the British Pavilion with 'No Woman is an Island' – a programme of artist performances curated by Rachael Young that moves beyond borders, culture and place, to explore what connects us.
For Island Caruso St John and Marcus Taylor create a platform atop the neo-classical building that offers a place to congregate with views over Venice while leaving the pavilion itself completely empty. The British Council has invited us to take over the pavilion for a second weekend of programming, utilising the interior Freespace to question a multitude of issues that Island evokes from freedom, exclusion, isolation, comfort, security and identity.
Artist Rachael Young responds with No Woman is an Island, that brings together three female performance artists – herself, Toni Lewis and Louisa Robbins – working across continents to inhabit the pavilion for a weekend. With vast swathes of the British empire built off the back of migrant communities over the course of generations, the artists invite us to consider how we can come together in the wake of Brexit, nationalism and other divisive political agendas. Collectively this group of women reclaim the space between the divide; they move beyond borders, culture and place, exploring not what divides us, but rather what connects us. They utilise the universal languages we share, those of love, care and humanity.
This is the second weekend in the 'Alternate Languages' series. The first weekend of workshops and discussions took place in the British Pavilion from 11 - 12 August.
Free with entry to the Giardini, Venice Architecture Biennale.
In collaboration with
Performances and artists
Postcards to Past Loves is a work in two parts; installation and retrospective soundscape. From ex-partners to the deceased, to strangers who smiled at us in the street once in 1996, Postcards to Past Loves gives the artist and audience alike a chance to tell past ‘loves’ all the things we never had the chance to say; all the ways in which we loved them, may still love them. How they’ve stayed with us over time... despite race or gender, riches or skill, distance or likeness.
Toni Lewis is an Artist, Producer and Dramaturg living in Birmingham, UK. Her practice, based predominantly within Live Art, interrogates and captures the nuances of identity and the ‘human experience’. She creates and produces transgressive and subversive work that resists and speaks to/for invisible pain, marginalised people/cultures and silenced voices - fuelled by despair, hope, rage and love. Toni’s work has been presented through Queer Migrant Takeover, Arts Admin, The Marlborough Theatre, Attenborough Centre for the Arts, BUZZCUT, Live Art Development Agency, Edinburgh Fringe, Latitude Festival and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Toni has produced for Fierce Festival, Demi Nandhra and Xavier de Sousa. Toni is currently lecturing at University of the Arts, London.
Through an intimate one-on-one experience, the audience is invited to consider what it means to care for the self and for others; to challenge ideas about race and belonging; to confront the differences and similarities between us.
Louisa Robbin is a multidisciplinary artist and writer, a Queer, Black British (African) woman who is forever ticking boxes. She is intent on making art that explores the beauty in ritual, intimacy and the self (self-care, self-harm, self-esteem). Her recent body of work ‘to care’ explores her depression and the desperate need to keep going, keep doing and be more.
She has produced work for arts festivals such as, BUZZCUT and Fierce Festival and collaborated with organisations across the UK including the Wellcome Collection, mac Birmingham, Fierce Festival and The Rep. As an advocate for Art for Social Change, Louisa is passionate about identity, heritage and diversity.
Inspired by the cult of Grace Jones and Afrofuturism, Rachael Young adapts an ongoing project NIGHTCLUBBING. With her work she explores womanhood akin to an island, that involves drifting, navigating new landscapes, trying to find points of rest and trying to assimilate. She invites us to consider the effort entailed in continually trying to find our place, to keep asking for kindness and respect, to keep asking for humanity, to keep being seen.
Rachael Young makes theatre, live art, interactive installations and socially engaged projects. She works in the spaces between disciplines, discovering new languages for performance through collaboration. Her work explores notions of freedom and bravery and is inspired by autobiographical experiences in relation to socio-political. Rachael’s work has recently been presented at The Lowry, The Place, Southbank Centre, Tate Modern, New Art Exchange, Cambridge Junction, Contact, Battersea Arts Centre, The Yard, ImPulsTanz Festival (Vienna), TRANSFORM! Festival (Marseille), Latitude Festival and Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts. Rachael also works as a lecturer, mentor and outside eye for other artists.
Schedule
Saturday 24 November
11am – Rachael Young, NIGHTCLUBBING (15 min)
12noon – Toni Lewis, Postcards to Past Loves
1pm – Louisa Robbin, Butter Me Up: The Care We Owe Each Other
2pm – Rachael Young, NIGHTCLUBBING (15 min)
3pm – Toni Lewis, Postcards to Past Loves
4pm – Louisa Robbin, Butter Me Up: The Care We Owe Each Other
5pm – A-Round Table
Artists Rachael Young, Louisa Robbin and Toni Lewis join the Royal Academy’s Head of Architecture, Kate Goodwin, to reflect on the day’s experiences, contemplate what it means to exist on a physical and metaphoric island and share ideas about generosity, empathy and connection.
Sunday 25 November
12noon – Toni Lewis, Postcards to Past Loves
1pm – Louisa Robbin, Butter Me Up: The Care We Owe Each Other
2pm – Rachael Young, NIGHTCLUBBING (15 min)