Water will act as the primary medium in this Live Art performance.
- It is a direct visual connection to the subject matter.
- It is an ‘everyday’ element that we are all very familiar with and use daily in our everyday rituals.
- It is a LIVE element, responding to time and life and I am very interested in presenting the essence of Liveness in this work.
- The elements used in this LIVE installation will act to provoke thought about climate change and pollution overall on our oceans.
Installation:
A large canvas made of un-primed calico will be installed on the ground, to compose and affect the viewing experience of the audience. It will reflect our natural viewing positions in relation to the ocean and suggest an area of flat expanse. A selection of ICE balls will be made using reclaimed plastic vessels. These vessels will be used as moulds to create ICE balls ( please refer to attached images). To enhance the dramatic visual effect of the melting process and the ‘live painting’ that the ice melting will create, different Inks will be mixed into the water before freezing the moulds. The fascinating aspect of these ICE balls is that they will look familiar but the ink will distort the perception of the object, this will produce surprise and engagement from the viewer. As a durational live process, the piece continues to respond to the elements in the environment, for example, the heat and the light of the gallery space and the temperature effects of human presence. The temporality of the ICE sculptures comments on the fragility of our oceans and highlights that we cannot neglect and ignore this essential life-giving natural source. Moi Tran is proposing a sound element to accompany this performance.
Audience Experience / Participation:
The aspect of engagement and witness to this event is complicit to both the performer and audience. In this performance, Moi Tran will engage audience participation as a physical presence and also as an active presence. A number of volunteer audience members will position themselves around the edge of the canvas. The Artist will also be positioned around the canvas edge. Once the performance begins she will the go to retrieve an ICE ball, return to the edge of the canvas and place the object on the canvas surface. The artist will then go to retrieve another ICE ball and offer this to an audience volunteer who will be instructed to place/roll the ICE ball onto the canvas surface. To this end, the audience is co-creators of the final piece. The ICE sculpture will melt slowly in this position and over the duration, an unpredictable abstract river of merging colours and melting objects will emerge contained within the canvas surface. The melting process will be visually transformative and comment on the fragility and transformation of our Oceans as a result of human activity on the largest surface area on our planet. The resulting Ink canvas will then be exhibited as a visual record/ live painting, alongside photographic documentation as a legacy of the event.
Artist proposed actions
Action 1- To explore the daily use of water. In this action, the artist proposes to create an online document where participants from all parts of the World are able to activate their involvement in the project. The participants will be invited to upload a diary in the form of video or text recording the day in the life of their daily water usage. As it is online, she hopes to encourage global participation will give an overview of water usage across different countries. Tran will then gather the footage and submissions and create a video art work to be shared and screened at a Universal Sea Event.
Action 2- To explore relationships to local water sources and the importance of these sources to local daily life. The artist proposes to conduct a local specific walk and collect workshop, whereby participants will be asked to walk around there local vicinity to share the local area and history based on dominant areas of local water. They will the collect and return with a small sample which Tran will archive and create an Art installation with the water samples and texts collected to evoke a personal and local connection in the a local relationship with Water, but also bringing to the conversation how local water is affected by the global Ocean.
Action 3- To explore relationship of storytelling, text and the ocean and water. A workshop working with a collaged writing technique, whereby a brainstorm of words are used to create short poems about our human relationship with the ocean and water.
BIOGRAPHY
Education
Winchester School of Art
Motley School of Design for Theatre and Performance
Masters of Fine Arts at The Chelsea College of Art
Selected Exhibition
January 2018 – WHERE? – Triangle Space Gallery- Millbank London
January 2018 – THE CIRCUIT _ A Movement Scenario – Durational Performance
OvalSpace / The Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground London
October 2017 – STOP SEARCH – MAFA Gallery
July 2017- Hidden Lines of Space – Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin
2017- Myths – MAFA Gallery
2016- CounterPractice The Cookhouse
2016- 947 Gestures – Berlinguer Cultural centre – Rome – Italy
2016- Site Specific outdoor installation performance – Monte Del Grano Memorial Park- Rome – Italy
2015 – II International Textile Art Symposium – Mark Rothko Centre, Latvia – Group Exhibition
2015 – Vertical 4 / Lost forever – Gallery 223, London- Group exhibition
2015 – Temporality in a cut – Display Gallery, London- Group exhibition
2015 – Sunday in the Ed with Park- Display Gallery, London- Group exhibition
2014 –Site Specific Installation, Elsewhere Living museum, North Carolina, USA- Group exhibition
2014- The Front room Gallery, New York, USA- Group exhibition
2014- The National Textile Institute, Blonduos, Iceland- Group exhibition
2014 –The Ensemble, Mother Gallery, London, United Kingdom- Solo exhibition
2014 –The Big Deal, London, United Kingdom- Group exhibition
Selected Collections
Mark Rothko Centre Collection – Latvia
Elsewhere – The Living Museum, North Carolina, USA
The Gotham West group- New York City, USA
Underline Gallery, New York City, USA
Selected Commissions
Interactive Textile/ Fibre Installation for Elsewhere Museum, North Carolina 2014
Selected artist for Methods and Madness collaboration, London 2014
Les Trois Soeur- Art installation for flagship store, London 2013
FENDI –Art installation at FENDI flagship store, London 2012
Selected Residencies
Rare Exports Artist Lab- 126 Gallery – Off1c1na- Spazio Y – AmistadeLab – Roma Italy 2016
Artist in Residence/Artist Symposium – Mark Rothko Centre. Daugvapils, Latvia 2015
Artist in Residence – Elsewhere, A Living Museum. Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. 2014
Artist in Residence – National Textile Institute , Blonduos islands, Iceland. 2014
Related work
Set and spatial design for performance, including theatre, dance and film in London and Europe. 2009- Present
Costume Design for performance, including theatre, dance and film in London and Europe. 2009- Present
Artist Webpage:
Moi Tran – <a href=”http://www.moitran.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>www.moitran.com</a>