Performance art workshop with Alan Schacher

In February 2018 Western Riverina Arts will be hosting 'Push the Medium', a collaborative exhibition of works by various artists challenged to push their medium and practice, curated by Alex Wisser. 

To accompany the official opening of this exhibition contemporary performance artist Alan Schacher will be holding a workshop for artists of any medium to explore the role of the body in art production and presentation. 

"For this workshop I’d like to consider the connection between the art-making process and performance. Performance may be temporal and durational, so how do we exhibit the unseen processes of the artist? The object in this workshop is not the end product.

What is the role of gesture and action and what are the differences between trace, relic, documentation and aftermath? Taking familiar surroundings as site, domestic and acquired objects as material, and personal issues and histories as provocation, let’s explore the boundaries between process and product. A theme you are struggling with, persistent images, ethereal essences, cultural beliefs and differences and familial histories are all material.

The appeal of performance lies in its immediacy and physicality. Its trace lies in the environment, in the memory of the witness, in any documentation and in any relics, detritus or product produced in the act. Performance demonstrates a balance between desire, compulsion, and energy on the part of the artist - and the impulse and pressure of the act to be brought into existence.

So in this workshop we’ll examine the trace in the art-making process. Let’s see what we can notice anew or afresh, uncover or reveal, discover in the habitual. You will work consciously with the idea of the trace, observing your process in both thought and action, to seek unity between body, concept, environment, medium, action, gesture and outcome." - Alan Schacher

WHERE: Narranderra Arts and Community Centre, 31 Cadell Street Narrandera. 

WHEN: Sunday 4th February 2018, 9am - 12pm/1pm (followed by the Push the Medium exhibition opening at 2pm) 

COST: Free, click here to register via Event Brite

Click here to learn more about Alan Schacher

For more information contact Liana via comms@westrivarts.com.au 

Image: Stooled - Alan Schacher, photo by Heidrun Lohr