i am small THE WORLD IS BIG will take place on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th of February 2010 in the Senate Building at the University of Kent. We are terribly excited that the project will go ahead as we had envisioned at the start (i.e. using the Senate and lasting two days). Why insist on this particular space, why this particular duration? The answer for us, I would say, might be summarised by simply stating: form and content.
Let me start with the Senate and perhaps later I will get to the duration. For those of you who might not know it, this building is situated in the neuralgic centre of the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus: in front of the library, Eliot and Rutherford Colleges at either side, and a stone throw’s away from The Registry and the Gulbenkian Theatre. This central position, as well as its name, reflects its role: a symbolic seat of power. The Senate’s large upstairs room serves as the meeting place of various university governing bodies (for instance the Humanities’ Faculty Board will be convening there on the day before our project take place). It is a space where statements are made, discussions take place, votes are cast and counted, and decisions are arrived at. I am trying to remember my own impressions of the building whilst I was an undergraduate. It’s proving to be difficult. I had certainly not been inside the Senate, nor did I have any actual knowledge of what happened inside it, but what I find most confusing is that although I was a conscientious student I seemed to lack any curious desire to find out, to sneak in (surprisingly the building is open throughout the day and it would not have been hard to take a peek). So in my mind at least, the Senate was simply an amorphous presence on campus which I loosely associated with power, its mystery and inaccessibility.
So how did we come to choose the Senate as our location? As a principle, when we start a new project we attempt not to get bogged down in practicalities, allowing the concepts to develop freely before exploring how they will be realised. However, as it the case with much of our work, this issue is not as simple and linear as that; the chicken and the egg, the snake biting its own tail. There is a moment -difficult to pinpoint- where the core concept of a project meets the various practicalities involved in its realisation and begins to be shaped by them. Location, of course, is the first of such on the list. Once i am small THE WORLD IS BIG had begun to take shape and the project’s core had been established we reached this moment. Where should it take place? Schengen Smile, the piece we devised last February for WorldFest 2009 took place in a series of teaching spaces: a corridor and two seminar rooms. The starkness of these spaces contributed to the bureaucratic atmosphere we were creating and so the marriage between the site and the piece was easy. Now thou, our desire to produce a more ambitious project was coupled with our conceptual interest in facilitating a coming together. The small and out-of-the-way rooms which had been the setting for the solitary journey the audience took in Schengen Smile would not do. We had to upgrade to a space that was larger, more ‘important’. There are only a few such spaces at the University of Kent’s Canterbury Campus: the large dining halls in Eliot and Rutherford Colleges and the Senate Building’s upstairs meeting room. And so the decision was made. With its substantial dimensions, central location and powerful associations the Senate presented itself as the ideal location.
And what will be doing in the building? I will leave that for later. For now it will suffice to say we will open up the building, inviting individuals to come together in a joint effort. In a way, the event will not be that dissimilar from the Senate’s normal use: meeting, discussing, deciding. We intend to occupy the entire building, transform it, and offer the audience a unique experience. As with Schengen Smile we are considering the possibility of creating a coherent route through the building, though in this case it will be multifocal and more complex. In regards to transformation, well, we are yet to find a specific relationship to the site. Will we ruthlessly colonise? Will we sympathetically stay within the vernacular of the building? That is, of course, only the first stage of our space-induced dilemmas. This search for conceptual clarity will then inevitably be followed by a series of practical negotiations. Please, please let us move the furniture around. Please, please let us use bluetack... When last year we had to relocate Lost In Translation from Canterbury city centre to Liverpool’s Victorian St. George’s Hall these practical negotiations resulted in significant formal changes to the piece. With that experience under our belts I hope that the process it more efficient this time. Fingers crossed.
Last Thursday Dee (Gulbenkian Theatre Director) kindly took us to the Senate. Since it was our first visit together and we did not have much time we could not go into much depth. But it is workable. We were excited by the motion sensitive sliding doors to the foyer and the red walls of the downstairs rooms. We were excited about the dramatic walk up the stairs. We were excited about the little square space just outside the upstairs meeting room and we were excited by the latter’s circular shape and significant dimensions. We were excited by the ten second lift ride and the feeling of disorientation when reaching the ground floor. We were not so excited by the artwork on display (sculpture of elephants and corporate-looking paintings downstairs, and portraits of past university Deans upstairs). But it is workable.
On a different, yet space-rated note, last Tuesday Rick and I met Fiona Watt (http://www.fionawatt.com/). She is a scenographer Cathy Westbrook (always the fairy godmother) had put us in touch with. We had a chat with Fiona about our company, past works and our current piece. She seemed enthusiastic and described i am small THE WORLD IS BIG as ‘life affirming’. Though at this stage we are designing the event on our own time will tell, and this might become the first project where we collaborate with a fellow creative. For the time being we have to sort things in our own heads, and Fiona’s questions were particularly useful because they pushed us towards clarity. We might have a few more informal chats and if a true collaboration is to take place it will do so after February’s presentation. As I said, time will tell.
Pablo
PS: We intend to take i am small THE WORLD IS BIG further, developing it beyond its first presentation next February. We want to take it elsewhere and tour. What about the location then? Ideas are beginning to flow and conversations are taking place. I wouldn’t want to give too much away just yet. We will keep you posted.
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