DIY: 2012 – Though Shalt Not Bore God: Live Art & Spirituality

Stacy Makishi

Though Shalt Not Bore God: Live Art & Spirituality

London

DIY 9: 2012 – Call for Participants

What happens when you mix Religion and Live Art? Get ready for an intensive workshop full of friction, fracture, break ups, break throughs, rupture and god willing, rapture!

Project summary:
What would Jesus do…for his come back tour? Thou Shalt Not Bore God: Live Art and Spirituality interrogates the role of spirituality in the creative process. Can art stimulate belief? Can spirituality radicalize art practice? Is it the aim of both art and spirituality to ‘deepen the mystery’?

During the month of September, Unity Unitarian Church in Islington will be a site for expansive dialogue and creative exploration. Each week, the workshop will begin with a brief presentation from an invited artist whose work has been inspired or made in response to ‘Religion and/or Spirituality’, followed by a Q&A discussion by the audience. This will be followed by four hours of creative provocations, writing and performance making. The final workshop on 29 September, will culminate under a giant revolving disco ball in Newington Green as part of an adjoining project called And The Stars Down So Close.

Dates, times and location:
Every Saturday in September 2012:

Saturdays 1, 8, 15 and 22 September at 12am – 5pm
AND
Saturday 29 September, And The Stars Down So Close, 7pm-11pm

New Unity Unitarian Church, 277A Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 2TZ

Application procedure:
Write a letter including your background, your relationship to spirituality/religion and why/how this workshop might be beneficial to you and your art practice. Also include what animates, intrigues, inspires and frustrates you at the moment. Attendance at all 5 days is compulsory.

Please send your letters to stacymakishi@gmail.com (cc’d to diy@thisisliveart.co.uk) with ‘Stacy Makishi DIY 9’ as the subject.

Closing date for applications is Monday 9 July 2012.

The artist:

Stacy Makishi is a renowned workshop wizard, performance provocateur and mischief mentor. She has been arousing creativity for more than 20 years at places like Harvard, MIT, UC Berkeley, Wellesley College and Queen Mary University, London. Recent works include Body Pods – Skin, a commission by Fuel, the Roundhouse & UCL Ear Institute and Wellcome Trust (released in Sept 2012), Love Letters to Francis, a film made in collaboration with Nick Parish and inspired by the works of Francis Bacon, commissioned by Tate Britain and B3 Media. In 2010, Makishi was also commissioned by guest curator Martine Rouleau to create a performance inside Miroslaw Balka’s epic sculptural installation How it Is at Tate Modern.

Contact information:
Please email in the first instance: stacymakishi@gmail.com

This project was a response to the DIY 9 Call for Proposals