The Girl in the Display Case: Innovation Installation - Creative Performance Practice

Last week (Wednesday 20th February 2019), one of our students climbed into our largest library display case for an afternoon.  As you can imagine, this provoked quite a bit of interest, both in the Library, and online!  (You'll remember that we blogged about it at the time, here.)

We asked Anna how she felt it had all gone, and we thought it would be nice to share her comments with you:-

"glad to hear that the installation provoked interest. Here's some thoughts after the installation:-
 What does sustainability mean? That has been one of my main questions during the performance research project that I am currently focusing on. 

Sustainability by the definition of  Bruntland Report for the World Commission on Environment and Development (1992) refers to 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.'

As a part of this research I installed objects found in nature alongside myself in a glass display in the Whittaker Library. This durational performance lasted almost six hours. The performance, named Still Life, was a performance of stillness, of plastic and sustainability. The task of being as still as possible soon became the main performance; the limited space of the display restricting my poses made it hard to maintain one for a long period of time. By changing my pose time to time I managed to find sustainable poses that then became the pattern of the movement of the performance. To my surprise I managed to give a fright so couple of people by breaking the stillness I had been maintaining. 'Is that a real person?' was a question I heard many times.

After a couple of hours inside the glass display I started to feel like the glass walls were the polluted atmosphere of the earth, and I represented the overpopulation of the planet, sharing my space with objects that no longer were useful to us and thus were thrown away and forgotten about.

How to live our lives as sustainably as possible? After this experiment I'd say that it takes a lot of re-arranging, re-configuring and re-adjusting to the existing conditions. It is a continuous process of discovering better ways to maintain and preserve what we have. It is an ongoing conversation rather than a question with an answer. We are accustomed to a certain comfort in our lives - which is natural - but when it comes to sustainability there are certain choices we have to make - if not for ourselves then for the future."

 

Innovation Installation - Creative Performance Practice (Wednesday 20th February 2019)

We're delighted to say that we will be hosting a live installation performance piece in the Library, next Wednesday, 20^th February. A third year CPP student will be installing themselves in the entrance way display case for 5 hours, in a piece aimed at understanding how durational performance, sustainability and activism can inform an arts practice.  The performance piece will take place between 12 noon and 6 pm.

 

We are very curious to see what will be done with our display cabinet!!!

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Snow Queen Melts Away

We've been happy to have the Snow Queen costume exhibited in the library during December and January, but this is her final week watching over staff and students at the issue desk.  We've blogged and tweeted about her, in the context of costume design and creation. Click here if you missed the blogpost first time round:- https://whittakerlive.blogspot.com/2018/12/cool-new-library-colleague-meet-our.html
 

We had an Item of the Month displayed from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Archives, too - the
2016 programme of the production by Stuart Paterson and Dougie Irvine. 

Don't forget, there's a wealth of interesting performance related material in our archives up at Speirs Locks!  It's best to make an appointment with Stuart Harris-Logan, our Archives Officer.   (Ask us, if you need to know how to get there.)

Watch out for our February display theme!!

Costume Design at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

To be or not to Sewing Bee

You won't be surprised that we teach costume design as part of our production portfolio here at RCS. So it goes without saying that our drama librarians have built up an amazing collection of books to help our wardrobe staff and students. Collection development is a key part of their remit.

We decided it would be a great idea to show you what our drama colleagues have put together over the years, to inspire and inform the people who dress our actors. 

Watch this space! The books are waiting but we haven't got hold of a dummy yet.  Maybe later this week?

We do like our book displays!  Empty, now, and waiting for the new one ....