What's Welsh for Performance? - 40 years of Performance Art in Wales

A research project devoted to uncovering and archiving the history of Performance Art in Wales

The history of performance art in Wales has yet to be written. Over a period of nearly forty years artists have been creating performance, action or time-based art in this country, yet their work remains largely confined to oral history, to half-remembered anecdotes, rumours and hearsay. As early as 1968, Welsh painter Ivor Davies, protagonist of the Destruction in Art movement, staged happenings at Swansea University; the National Eisteddfod of 1977 in Wrexham became notorious for its international performance programme featuring Joseph Beuys, Jannis Kounellis and Mario Merz and impromptu interventions by Welsh artist Paul Davies; in the 1990s, Cardiff Art in Time provided an important platform for international and local performance work ... One often searches in vain for traces of these events in the official annals of Welsh art history. Surprising for an artistic genre so committed to documentation and theoretical reflection, there are no publicly accessible archives dedicated to performance art in Wales, no books, no journals. And yet, the contemporary performance art scene in this country is still one of the most vibrant anywhere in the UK.

What's Welsh for Performance? is a major research project devoted to uncovering and archiving the history of Performance Art in Wales. It defines its area of interest as:

1. performance work that has taken place within the geographic borders of Wales, including performances made in Wales by artists from outside of Wales, but excluding performances made by Wales-based performers outside of Wales, unless these performances were of particular importance to the development of Welsh performance art. The intention is to map the formation of an artistic 'field' or 'scene' as the result of particular internal and external artistic, cultural, social and environmental influences.
2. performance art and work that has emerged from this field - video, sonic, multimedia, interactive and installation arts - if this work has a performative quality; 'live art', including some experimental theatre and dance if this work displays strong affinities with the aesthetics of performance art; and performance poetry.

The time frame of the project covers roughly the past 40 years, from the appearance of the first happenings in Wales in the late 1960s to the present day.

What's Welsh for Performance? uses the following methodological approaches:

1. field research to identify the full range and types of performance work made in Wales between 1965 and 2008
2. theoretical research to investigate key theoretical issues relating to performance and documentation and performance art history
3. practical curatorial interventions

What's Welsh for Performance? explores the following key theoretical themes:

1. how can the ephemeral art of performance be documented and archived?
2. how is an artistic field formed within a particular cultural, social and environment context?
3. how does the archiving of performance itself contribute to the constitution of such a field?
   

What's Welsh for Performance? works with the following materials:

1. documentation, including photos, films and videos, manifestoes, notes, drawings, newspaper articles, written accounts etc.
2. a series of oral history interviews with artists, audiences and administrators.
   

What's Welsh for Performance? offers the following:

1. a searchable on-line database. The intention is not to create a new physical collection, but a 'virtual' index that allows users to locate where documentary material on performance art in Wales is currently held.
2. a series of publicly staged 'oral history' conversations (2007-2008)
3. a publication documenting 40 years of Performance Art in Wales (1968-2008), including a chronology, critical essays on key artists, institutions and networks, themes and movements, and a bibliography of relevant publication.
4. website, blog, lectures, reconstructions, revisitations, publications, sound installation etc.