Last terms video piece Mimic featured myself miming to the words of a Black girl talking about ‘Black girl struggles’. By creating a performance piece out of this I will be able to connect with the audience in a different way. It will also be more obvious that it is not my voice/words that are being spoken.
In this performance I mime to the same track used in the video below, that audience members are listening to through headphones. I think this setup works well and forces people to listen to what is being said while highlighting the fact that the are not my words. I feel the works better than the video as an artwork, however I don’t think I would feel as good about this piece if I were performing it to a Black audience as I am appropriating Black struggles while doing nothing towards helping the situation, so, while intentions of this piece are good, it could still be considered offensive which is not something I am aiming for. Something I will take from this perforce is the set up, with the chairs set out like this, the wearing of headphones but something happening beyond them.
Lauren Brockwell 