Harold Offeh invites participants to explore performance, re-enactment and posing as tools for exploring histories, speculative fictions and setting out critical questions. The workshop draws on Offeh’s ongoing research into play, embodiment and re-enactment. The session will first introduce a number of strategies and approaches, and you will then work towards the creation of a collective resource in the form of a manual or collection of prompts. The resource will consist of instructions, questions and provocations for performance.
You are invited to bring a visual reference of an image (photo or drawing) of a full-figure pose as a starting point. The image should show a full body (not cropped) in a particular pose or position. The reference can be from a historical, personal, documentary or fictional source. The image you use should be informed by your own curiosity or questions. Your image will be the starting point for a series of tasks and the eventual creation of a collective resource/document (in PDF format) that everyone will have access to after the session.
Offeh is interested in how through the body, actions and gestures we might generate individual and collective experiences and knowledge. No prior experience in movement or dance is needed. Pushkin House is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every audience member. Please get in touch with us if you have a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
This event is part of the engagement programme to accompany The Battle Over Mazepa exhibition by Mykola Ridnyi. The programme explores themes of memory, identity and migration.
About the artist
Harold Offeh is an artist and educator based in Cambridge, UK. He is currently a Senior Tutor on the Fine Art MFA at The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford and a Tutor in Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art, London. Offeh is interested in the space created by the inhabiting or embodying of histories and makes performance, video, photography, learning and social arts practice. He exhibited widely in the UK and internationally.