An exhibition 'Power Shift' was installed in the Foyer space at the School of Art and Design at East Carolina University this week. A collaborative work between Marilyn Forbes (School of Art and Design custodial staff) Wafaa Bilal (visiting artist from Tisch School of Arts at NYU), Adam Jacono (photo grad) and myself explores artmaking and performance, the mop as art making instrument, performative gesture of the mop 'stroke' and nature of the repetitive mop stroke as body memory-art gesture.
One significant result of this collaboration was the recognition of the moment when power shifts from the director of the performance to the participant artist as the collaboration is happening - in this case between Wafaa and Adam (as directors) and the artist (Marilyn). Initially the process began as being formally directed by Wafaa and then the power shifted within the process to Marilyn as the embodiment of artist / painter making all artistic and directive decisions. In my piece, (the video as documentation) the process of artmaking and the result when all power is handed over to the maker becomes the focus for the performance- the art piece being the mop and bucket.
Big thanks go to Marilyn Forbes for being enthusiastic, committed and willing to trust us in our process, Wafaa Bilal for his inspiration and committment to art practice and Adam Jacono for being a great host and co-collaborator in the process.
Biggest thanks go to Marilyn for her willingness to participate and Adam for making this happen.
Annie