hannah whittaker

performance:

one on one:

installation:

digital:

community projects:

In Situ

One on One Performance (2012)

In this place, in my place, what position will you take?

In relation to the issue of suffering "why does it happen?" can be irrelevant, more important is the question 'what am I going to do about it?' 

Exploring the ideas of suffering and empathy, in a safe and secure environment in which all choices are confidential, this is a task based one on one performance in which the audience cannot remain passive. 

‘A tour de force of durational performance art revealing a mature and exciting new talent’
— Gill Foster

PAST PERFORMANCES

Trace video of the projected video output:

Layers

Digital Performance (2012)

This multimedia performance is concerned with the idea of layering, not only of multimedia with sound and video looping but also the layers applied daily to my face. Examining the metamorphosis that the face undergoes, the rigorous procedures performed to prepare the visage for the outside world, creating a state of flux and suggesting a fluidity of persona.

The piece can be presented as either a fixed timed performance or as a continuous durational installation.

PAST SHOWINGS

Your Face, Your Self

One On One Performance (2012)

A one on one performance in which the audience are invited to take a journey with themselves. 

An interactive audio/visual installation for one person at a time, inviting the viewer to examine their relationship with their own reflection. They are encouraged to stare at their image while listening to an internal monologue that draws on psychology and literary texts, such as Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Oscar Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Gray and Sartre's Nausea, all of which describe and voice the internal observations on one's outwards appearance. The audio guides them to examine family traits, scars, personal customisation such as piercings. Thinking back to our infant stage when we began to recognise our reflection as ourselves, going through puberty when we may have become more obsessed by our image and self expression, onwards to the history shown in the geographical landscape of our face forged by our lives and overall questioning whether you feel it is a true representation of your inner self.

PAST SHOWINGS

Run to Run

Interactive Installation (2013)

It is survival of the fittest, in the most literal of senses.

Originally part of the ‘Nothing But Smoke…’ collection of installations, this piece has broken away not only to be a stand alone interactive spectacle but has also inspired a mini series of site-specific explorations, playing with the mechanics of the flipbook and the need for audience participation to make them work/ make the ‘performer’ move. 

This piece was addictive. Each time I tried that little bit harder, and each time I seemed to fail right at the last hurdle. If ever a piece encapsulated the term ‘tempting failure’, it was this.

Editions:

Run to Run: Survival of the fittest (2012)
Run to make the animation progress through life, stop running and he dies - this interactive installation invites the audience to challenge themselves and playfully consider the futility of life. 

Run to Run: Lordship Lane (2016)
Race against the clock to collect the shopping from Lordship Lane - making fun of the 'to do list'. 

Run to Run: Shoreditch Sprint (2017)
Race against the clock to reach the Hoxton Job Centre before it shuts, while completing urgent tasks along the way. 

Run to Run: Guildhall Hurtle (2017)
Make your way around the exhibits in Guildhall Museum and get out before it closes at 5pm. 

PAST SHOWINGS

Here are some of the audience's answers, when asked hypothetically what they would give in exchange for the performance:

Worth of Service

One On One Performance (2013)

You are invited for a foot washing - Worth of Service is an intimate one on one performance treating you to a cleansing encounter. Together we will explore the ways in which we rate and value acts of service, and consider the motivation behind labours that require no monetary compensation.

PAST PERFORMANCES

I'm Cutting You Off

Video Installation (2013)

From a distance, without the sound, the screen seems to display a commonplace occurrence of brushing, tying and cutting hair. However, upon closer inspection discovering the the other side, by putting on the headphones, with the audio revealing the pain and suffering endured by the hair itself during these tasks.

Hair provided by Hannah Whittaker
Cutting and Voice by Yoko Ishiguro
Afterwards trimming by Siobhan Halpin
Editing by Hannah Whittaker

PAST SHOWINGS

re:place

Installation (2013)

A site-specific installation concerned with the memory of space and artistic context

re:place (part I) – photography installation

Instead of using photography to capture and frame a perspective of the space and then extract it to display in a foreign surroundings re:place keeps the views within the context of the original source. Highlighting and drawing attention to the selected view of the camera by suspending the images from where they were taken. Keeping it there captures that moment in time and displays how the scene has changed.

re:place (part II) – video installation

The video installation is compiled of frames captured from the venue throughout the day and them projected back onto the same surface creating a living memory of the space.

PAST SHOWINGS

Wish List

One On One Performance (2015)

Amongst the party crowd there is a Christmas elf, interacting with people and small groups; inviting them to share their wishes for this Christmas. These wishes can be material things, help in a relationship/situation, a dream job, world peace or anything. To submit these desires people are encouraged to draw something to represent their wish onto the elf's arms in permanent marker, with the choice of whether or not to explain the meaning of the drawing. The elf will collect the wishes throughout the evening and continue to think and pray over all of them as long as they remain visible on their arms.

PAST PERFORMANCES

Natal (Idea in Gestation)

Interactive Performance (2016)

An intimate performance exploring the conception, nurturing and development of a creative idea, from inspiration through to fruition, using the visual metaphor of a pregnancy.

Addressing issues and concerns that any creative mind will have encountered when undertaking a project; the initial pride of having the inspiration, decisions on development, potential of collaboration etc.  The performance takes the form of a dramatic monologue delivered directly to the surrounding  audience, inviting, if not forcing, them to partake on this journey and share responsibility with the performer. 

This piece is a work in progress, with an aim to be developed into a full length piece with the help of fund and artist residencies. 

PAST PERFORMANCES

Theatre in the Pound
Monday 20th Nov 2017
The Cockpit Theatre, Gateforth Street, London NW8 8EH

ProperGanda
Friday 4th Nov 2016
The Others, 6 Manor Road, N16 5 London, United Kingdom

Guerrilla Zoo's Modern Panic VII: Panic Sermons 
Sunday 9th Oct 2016
Bethnal Green Working Men's Club

Cables

Durational Performance Installation (2016)

I fill a small space with cables, mounds and mounds of tangled cables, cables that work, are useful and very valuable - if they weren't all tangled together. In their current state they are obsolete and have been left to gather dust. I sort them out, I keep going until they are all done. On display to the public, they can see the show progression throughout the day.
It takes 8 hours. 

Some observations from during the performance:
09:45 - People on their way to work watch as I fill the window with cables. 
10:00 - More cables than I'd realised. Now that I'm in the door won't open, I'm more or less trapped. 
11:10 - It's quite therapeutic, following the cables as they weave in and out of each other. A massive puzzle. 
12:15 - 2 hours in and the hooks I was hanging untangled cables on has just fallen down. Now I'm sorting on top of the mess, doesn't feel or look like any progress. 
13:00 - I usually get really frustrated and impatient untangling cables, but I know I'm here for the long run so just taking it slow, taking my time and enjoying the task. 
13:10 - People on their lunch break come to see my progress and sympathise with me. 
14:45 - Everything here is so obsolete unplugged, unable to serve it's purpose, simply because it's tangled and no one has the time to untangle them. 
15:10 - Considering all the other potential uses for these cables, I could weave them together on a loom?
15:33 - My hands are really hurting, rope burn, dust, and a few sharp broken wires.  
16:30 - I'm starting to rush now, didn't think it would take this long. Doesn't seem to be getting much easier. 
17:10 - Rushing, hurts even more.
17:33 - All the people that passed on their way to work this morning starting to come by again, does it look like I've made any progress?

Cables donated by Relentless Number 5,  Central School of Speech and Drama and Colonia Forever

Artists' window take over as part of the 'Whose London is it Anyway?' Festival
Jan 2016
Camden People's Theatre

Take, eat;

Interactive Installation (2016)

An interactive installation / bread sculpture inviting people to reconnect with the ritual of communion and what the bread and wine signify. Allowing people to come and break off some of the bread from the sculpture to eat. The sacrifice, the sustenance is there for you, you just need to reach out and claim it. 

Working with wood and bread as materials was a new venture away from performance and the digital and an continuation of my exploration of the use of temporary artworks and materials. 

PAST SHOWINGS

Wailing Wall

Interactive Installation (2017)
 
Commissioned for Unveiling Festival 2017

The title is taken from the Western Wall of the temple in Jerusalem, nicknamed the Wailing Wall due the practice of Jews to visit the site to pray, weep over the temple’s destruction and slip prayer notes into the cracks in the walls.

As Christians we believe the temple where God resides is not a physical building but the body of His people. This installation seeks to be a representation of this. As we enter our prayers into the Wailing Wall, we start to understand the unity of His family and that we are all held together as the new wailing wall crying out: the living stones of His temple.

Interact:

1. Listen to the prayers through the wall’s weep holes

2. Kneel down at the cornerstone and record a prayer by placing your hands on either side. This will be added to the library of prayers.

PAST SHOWINGS

Mother of All Pain

Installation (2018)

Sound installation investigating communication between children in pain, clinicians and the mother figure as the axis point of crisis, with Professor Bernie Carter, Writer Rob Young and associate artist Hannah Whittaker.

Commissioned by 30 Bird Productions as part of the Junctures three year programme investing, supporting and developing transcultural and interdisciplinary practice. 

For more information on this collaborative project please see the project website.  

Supported by Edge Hill University and produced by 30 Bird Productions 

PAST SHOWINGS

ArtsEqual Conference
13th June 2018 
Edge Hill University

Junctures2,
24th March 2018,
Cambridge Junction,

Week in Residence, 5th-9th March 2018, Cambridge Junction

Sky Above the Scene

Video Installation (2019)

In a time of borders being strengthened and unions being separated, Sky Above The Scene aims to focus attention on and increase appreciation of what unites us - our coexistence under one, borderless sky. While this may be a seemingly obvious fact, it’s perhaps only when space and time are provided to meditate on this fact, that it has the chance to change how people actually perceive the world. Sky Above the Scene aims to celebrate diversity, calling into question our perceptions of other cultures and challenging the notion of them being far removed and ‘foreign’, while making us think about our own position in the world, and how we would like our own communities to be perceived.

“A seemingly simple idea, executed so beautifully to create an extremely powerful experience.”

“The world would be a better place if more people come and saw this exhibition. A lovely celebration of our differences and similarities.”

“Thoughtful, surprising and giving us all breathing space, which we need!”

PAST EDITIONS

The Engine Room
March 2019

Electric Medway Festival
August 2020

Puncture the Screen Festival
July 2022

I’ll Never Let You Go
(But I will, it’s inevitable, I can’t hold on forever. But I won’t stop trying)

Durational Performance (2019)

Relationships are hard. Like all things worth having they take work.

In love we make extravagant declarations and promises to each other: ‘I’ll always be there for you’, ‘I’ll never hurt you’, ‘I’ll never let you down’. While our intentions are good, we are human and fallible and unable to ever truly fulfil these promises. So what should we do - Give up? Not declare such things? No, we acknowledge our fallibility and just keep trying.

The performers take it in turns to carry each other, holding on as long as they can. Once they have failed they swap over and start again. they continue this for 3 hours. It’s not elegant, it’s not strong but it is persistent - it’s love.

PAST PERFORMANCES

StrangeLove Festival
24th Mar 2019
Brewery Tap Project Space

Periscope

Interactive Installation (2019)

Periscope considers our sense of identity and self-image.  Do we view ourselves through the lens of the media, falling short of superficial unattainable standards, or do we see ourselves from the perspective of our Father in heaven - who made us, formed us and knows us better than we know ourselves?

The first section - displays a video montage of the media’s ideas of beauty and perfection. By standing in front of the screen (and the projector) you obstruct the image, creating a you-shaped shadow - you do not reflect this image of perfection, you are a blemish on this image.

You then continue to the second section - this screen initial looks blank, however when you stand in front of it it reveals a you-shaped image that contains animated references from the bible about how God, your father, views you. Due to your proximity to the screen only you can see and read these revealed messages about yourself. It is by coming close to the father that we can see ourselves through his eyes and understand our own identities.

PAST SHOWINGS

Unveiling Festival 
16th - 17th May 2019
The Engine Room

Parquet Picioare

Installation (2019)

Parquet Picioare is a site-specific installation designed especially for St Margaret with St Columba Church, Leytonstone. Using the building’s architecture as a starting point, and inspired by the Romanian Orthodox community who also worship at the church, Parquet Picioare reflects the strong sense of fellowship and community fostered here.

Picioare is the Romanian word for ‘feet’ and the aim of this piece it to create a community ‘footprint’. The individually made wooden tiles feature the outlines of the feet of people from the wider church community. While each tile is different, their coordination within a larger pattern symbolises a unity which permits difference.

Commissioned by Art+Christianity
With special thanks to Sam Pearce, Andy Millest and Frank Whittaker

Emotional Distancing

Video Performance (2020)

Do not confuse social distancing with emotional distancing...

In a time of isolation and lockdown, using the visual spacing layout of a Zoom call that so many will have been accustomed with, this piece remembers how we can unintentionally distance ourselves within relationships due to our actions, pride and selfishness. We need to make the effort to go the distance and close these gaps in order to be reunited.

“This is so close to home - I feel so moved and oddly understood.”

“Made me wish I could actually move round the screen to reach people; I hadn’t realised how frustrated I am with distancing.”

Performed by Hannah & Frank Whittaker
Filmed on location in lockdown

PAST SHOWINGS

Natal = Exertion

Stained Glass Installation (2020)

A continuation from my performance piece Natal (Idea in Gestation), Exertion considers the physical endurance and breaking undertaken in the final push of creation. Again using the visual imagery of childbirth, but referring to all creativity - the anguish and sacrifice experienced in bringing something into being.

This piece was produced out of a residency with Unveiling Festival to explore themes of ‘Beauty from Brokenness’.

PAST SHOWINGS

Drawing on Wisdom

Community Storytelling Project (2020 - 2021)

Drawing On Wisdom is an intergenerational community storytelling project that brings together the older and young members of the community to share, listen, learn and create, and to contemplate their shared experiences of childhood challenges. 

The outcomes of this project have so far been a series of three videos and one printed illustrated storybook which are all available to view on the project page.

This compilation of three stories, delightfully interlaced with drawings by children, is a great insight to wisdom and a new memory being made in the finished artwork. ‘

- Curator Angeline Morley

PAST SHOWINGS

Turner Contemporary
Open Exhibition
Oct 2021 - Feb 2022

Kent Creatives Series
KMTV
Feb 2022

This Performance is Unstable

Experimental Online Performance (2021)

Online meetings bring a new digital chaos to our lives – bad connections, delayed audio, feedback loops and jittery conversations.

This Performance Is Unstable is a work for nine remote singers that both avoids and embraces these glitches, exploiting them to create a new way of collaborating musically over the internet. The experimental score uses technical problems as its chance element and tests the musical possibilities where precise timing is either less important or overcome altogether.

Watch and listen as a changing kaleidoscope of sound is produced, with features of excitement, suspense, resolution and surprise…

This was work was developed in partnership with Andy Millest, who is a music practitioner, musician and composer with over four decades of experience - he’s also my dad. This is our first official collaboration.

This piece was commissioned by Sparked Echo for the Electric Medway festival 2021.

PAST SHOWINGS

Cathedral of Community

Installation (2021)

The vibrancy and character of an area is created by its people, the community that dwells there. To celebrate a place is to celebrate its people.

The Cathedral of Community is a colourful spectacle dedicated to these people. A building will be taken over, its windows filled with tissue-paper stained glass portraits of the people behind the businesses and organisations of the area. Visible by day but also, more excitingly, lit up at night to create a dazzling attraction.

This project removes the visual barrier of physical walls to allow us a glimpse inside at the staff, teams and workers behind the scenes.

PAST EDITIONS

Chatham Intra Cultural Consortium
May 2021

Gillingham POW
Gillingham High St
Aug 2021

The Last Nine Months

Video Installation (2024)

A collection of short videos inspired by the last 9 months while I have been on maternity leave. Projected onto, and amongst, the mess of the MESS ROOM while it undergoes building work these videos are little observations and moments of joy.

• Golden Hour (1 min)

• Colour Injection (38 sec)

• Mobile Surveillance (2min 23sec)

• Supply & Demand (5min 38sec)

• Body as Landscape (6min 51sec)

• Making Faces (2min 19sec)

PAST EXHIBITIONS

Medway Open Studios
Mess Room
July 2024

Nocturnal Trail
Electric Medway Festival
Oct 2024

Holding On

Interactive installation (2024)

This interactive artwork invites participants to engage both physically and mentally, as they reflect on self-belief and perseverance while climbing and reading the poem. Watching people interact with this living artwork has been inspiring and humbling. It’s a testament to how art can create spaces for personal and communal reflection.

Viewing the wall and the climbers it’s possible to see some of the types of holds used and moves needed to navigate the journey, but what you don't see is the text of the poem embedded within the textural elements of the route. The climber encounters the poem not only through the text read but also the shapes and positions their body is required to make. Unlike most routes this climbable artwork includes various different types of holds, a resting place, text, a mirror and ends with the choice to either descend down the easy way or attempt the impossible leap.

This artwork was commissioned by People United, The Co-Design Studio, and the Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN) to create this climbable artwork, inspired by a poem written by KRAN members and poet Yomi Sode, which has been installed at F51 climbing centre in Folkestone.

PAST INSTALLATIONS

F51
Folkestone
Sept - Oct 2024