Performative Potentials
Reading Joanna Mann’s (2014) article, Towards A Politics Of Whimsy: Yarn Bombing In the City and hearing Sharon and Helen share how they encounter and present lively worlds encourages us to consider the importance of the performative as a feminist practice. Yarn bombing is performative. Not only does it require a person to engage in crochet and knitting, but the environment has a role to play in the performance. Often, yarn bombing is a surprise, it’s out of place, doesn’t quite make sense, and can be disarming. In this sense, it might be considered whimsical. Encountering knitted benches or crocheted animals in surprising places causes a person to pause, wonder, look again, and think. It is the encounter, not the object, that is performative.
Joanna Mann identifies these as whimsical and shows the paradoxical politics of the whimsy. It’s the performative potential that is of interest. In particular we are curious as to what whimsy can do, interrupt, and possibly transform..
Contested Spaces, Photograph by Danielle Fusco.
Thinking about the exhibit, Contested Spaces, held in Spectrum Gallery, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley Campus, Western Australia, helps to consider the performative potential of art and creating art. Contested Spaces is a work under development (2020–current) by contemporary artists and long-time collaborators Nicola Kaye and Stephen Terry, contemporary artist Lyndall Adams and writer Marcella Polain.
The work included several hand-stitched ‘rude’ words (b@tch, c@nt, f@ck, etc.). Were these meant to disarm? They certainly made us wonder why these particular words and in what context might they provoke? The use of embroidery, done with skill and precision on high quality linen and with black wool thread, combined with forcing thread through fabric to create unspeakable words is paradoxically political and performative. But, is it whimsical? Furthermore, what is a whimsical aesthetic? How might a whimsical aesthetic be used strategically to make change? Or, put another way, what is the performative potential of whimsical aesthetics?
This entry was written by The Ediths (Mindy Blaise, Jane Merewether, and Jo Pollitt) and inspired by the presentation by Helen Clarke and Sharon Witt (atttention2Place, UK) at the Ediths Roundtable Series 2021.