For my first two days I decided not to leave the space of Anatum’s Abode at all to explore the atmosphere of it better.

There were two reasons for it.

Firstly I wanted to gather materials and situations possibly useful for a short performance art piece which I executed at the evening of 14th – “Open Your Skull”  (see more below).
Secondly I thought this might be an approach how to start working on my “city exploration”. I am interested in a ways how to explore, to feel, to understand a city, especially that kind of a megalopolis like London. My idea was that I could start the research by establishing a base, by understanding of my temporary home. I found different objects and spirits around. I did some exercises and tried to explore the space with as big concentration as possible, breathing and touching the space…

This fast gathered material (because two incomplete days is really not enough for understanding of any space) resulted to the performance mentioned above. I got interested by a history of Anatum’s Abode and about the fact that the building used to be a butcher store. Later on because of the great effort of the people who runs the place it changed into a squatt and cultural place. My action followed a simple story of that transformation. I used a red costume, red glove and red light as well as the knife, candle or ink and by that reffered to the butcher practices (such as killing animals), later on all this practices were overcame, I got released from the heavy red dress and walked away playing a musical instrument. My favourite moment of the piece was me dripping a wax from the candle I was holding with my lips on the tongue of the one of the spectators/listeners. It is nice that when performing in a situation where the distance between the performer and the audience is minimal such things – which one wouldn’t expect at all – might happen.

Some pics from the action

Props (for fun)