Rehearsing Catastrophe: An Ark for Somerset

BACKGROUND: This project is research in Visual Art, (community and public art). I am the artist/researcher who created it. It addresses the proposition that the site, participants and changing local circumstances can inform both the poetics of artworks and constitute central materials in their creation. CONTRIBUTION: It challenges support for 'site-specific' art by much community art theory, supporting Mirwon Kwon's influential thesis on its transferability and a 'Three Ecologies' approach to environmental issues as discussed by Felix Guattari. And to this it adds a feminist lens. 95 This commission, with a projection of an ark on the Holburne Museum façade, focused on a procession with placards along the main street of Bath as a 'rehearsal' for flooding of the Somerset Levels. While the placards were created to inform passers-by, the procession was changed by the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris on the 3rd day. Participants were now 'rehearsing catastrophe' in support of Parisians. Importantly the artwork supported this shift to address an immediate need revealing it to be in continual process even during exhibition, important evidence of materiality as process. SIGNIFICANCE: The work enabled participants to have a voice at a difficult time. It brought people to the city and museum (with 30-40 volunteers and hundreds of viewers each night) thus also benefitting Bath Spa University and the British Arts Council, which provided all funding including travel. This research influenced creation of a 'Rehearsing Catastrophe' work directly addressing terrorism for Mons Cultural capital of Europe Festival in Belgium.