The Zwillinge Project 1992 - 98
conversing with sites
The Zwillinge Project began in the summer of 1992 as a collaboration between visual artist Kirsten Lavers and theatre maker Melanie Thompson. From its inception the Zwillinge Project was committed to creating site-specific work in non art spaces. The Zwillinge Project presented 10 live works, called episodes, in various sites in England and Northern Ireland.
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| Episode 1 The Shed, Somerset |
Episode 2 - The Garage, Somerset | Episode 3 - Garden Studio, Devon |
| contents of the garden shed, silk handkerchiefs, one book |
one car,
plastic sheeting, aluminium foil, blue light bulb, rope, stuffed
baby suit, baby's bottle, suitcases/furniture/child's buggy on
roof rack. |
garden nets,
earth, plants, windowlene, |
The first three episodes were private affairs, conducted
in the artists' homes and at Dartington College, and initiated a dialogue
which began to incorporate the strategies of each of their backgrounds,
Melanie Thompson is a performer and Kirsten Lavers a visual artist.
Things moved a long way since then, but the resonances of that early
work - a late night piece in a garage with bundles in the back of a
car - dead children perhaps, or the contents of a house packed by people
having to flee.
Their work is involved with responding to and re-visioning sites, drawing
associations from them and bringing to them the ongoing pre-occupations
of the artists, in a sense each piece composes a new site geography.
It is also live work which is in part about the process of composing
an artist's life, bringing together materials and events with personal
and artistic resonances which explore the process of unravelling and
exchanging meanings over the shadow line which exists between being
an artist and a private person.
Claire MacDonald (womens art magazine)
The following links (opening in new windows) provide details on the 7 major live episodes of the Zwillinge Project>
Episode 4 Workspace Leeds June 1993 - Hybrid Magazine Review
Episode 5 The Leper Chapel Cambridge Feb 1994 - reviewed by Anna MacDonald
Episode 6 Hotel Rooms Hull May 1994 - reviewed by David Hughes for liveartmagazine
Episode 7 Upstairs Gloucestershire July 1994 - reviewed by Ric Allsopp
Episode 8 The Walled Garden Bridgwater Sept 1994 - artist's letter from Episode 12
Episode 9 Belfast (London) Sept 1995 - reviewed by Lois Keidan - then Director of ICA Livearts
Episode 10 Archipelago Bristol Feb 1996 - reviewed by Eric Laurier
Episode 11 - Conversing with Sites
A Slide/Lecture performance event which in a range of voices, including
the artists' themselves, set out the particular territory and approach
to site - specific performance developed by The Zwillinge Project. The
lecture event was performed by both artists at De Montford University
and Manchester Metropolitan University in May 1997.
"One of the things that the Zwillinge Project has achieved
(in Episode 11) which is extremely beneficial is the clarity of the way
that they are tracking what they are doing. They have laid out for us
very clearly this territory where many people have gone off but very few
have reported back."
Nancy Reilly
End of lecture discussion May 1997
Manchester Metropolitan University
Episode 12 - The Zwillinge Project
A limited edition catalogue which includes: major essay on the Zwillinge
series by Claire MacDonald, text and images from both the process and
presentation of Episodes 1 - 10, script of the Episode 11 lecture and
artists' personal statements. The Catalogue is accompanied by a set of
artists' 'letters' which provide an in depth analysis of each Episode
from each artist's personal perspective. This document has now sold out
but is held at a number of libraries including Dartington College of Arts
Library, Totnes, Devon.