In our second conversation of the "momentum" series, "How to care collectively?", Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage) talks with Lois Keidan, co-founder and director of the Live Art Development Agency in London, and performance artist and writer Joseph Morgan Schofield about implementing collective care practice in art-making contexts, organisation and Live Art programming. Institutional failures and transformative responses have brought out the urgency for a redistribution of care and necessary structural transformation. They touch upon the current discourse about democratising power relations in art institutions, and what this can mean for collective and non-hierarchical modes of production. They inquire how to requalify ideology through Live Art, envisioning inclusion, diversity and a queer perspective fundamental for this process.
Lois Keidan is the co-founder and Director of the Live Art Development Agency (LADA) in London. From 1992 to 1997 she was Director of Live Arts at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. She was responsible for national policy and provision for Performance Art and interdisciplinary practices at the Arts Council of Great Britain; performance producer for the National Review of Live Art/Midland Group, Nottingham; and programme co-ordinator at Theatre Workshop, Edinburgh. She has been awarded Honorary Fellowships by Dartington College of Arts (1999) and Queen Mary, University of London (2009), and in 2015 received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Gothenburg. The following conversation is also born out of Lois’ decision to step down her position as Director of the Live Art Development Agency, announced in June 2020, to accelerate diversity plans and help address “critical issues of representation” in the cultural sector.
Joseph Morgan Schofield is a performance artist and writer. Terming their practice queer ritual action, they offer performance as a technology of divination; a place of mourning, yearning, processing and communing. Understanding acts of gathering and communing as central to their practice, Joseph’s practice incorporates curating, producing, mentoring and teaching. They facilitate F U T U R E R I T U A L, a performance and research project considering ritual and queer futurity, which they co-established in 2017. They co-produce move close, Live Art Club [London], are the co-founder of VSSL studio in London, and the Assistant Director of ]performance s p a c e[ in Folkestone. Joseph is a member of Chisenhale Dance Space in London, and of the international Anam Cara collective. They are a frequent collaborator of Venice International Performance Art Week, and work for the Live Art Development Agency in a part time capacity.
Welcome to the momentum of December 7, 2020.
