The Artist is Not Present is on Vimeo
“Sonia Boué’s intervention at Site Gallery, The Artist is Not Present explored conditional visibility and invisible disability. A playful ambivalence runs through her work for her We Are Invisible We Are Visible intervention.
The event We are Invisible We are Visible was presented by DASH, the disabled led visual arts organisation, and was awarded the 2021 Ampersand Prize.
The Artist is Not Present was a durational performance live streamed from the artist’s studio, on 2 July between 12 – 6 pm. Boué inhabited and embodied a living Dadaist collage in her studio installation via the Instagram Live platform.
Boué’s primary focus for the piece reflects a concern with the documentation and dissemination of performance traces using the multiple lenses employed during it’s enactment. Documentation, including the short film, a gallery of film stills and photographs can be viewed on her website.
We Are Invisible We Are Visible (WAIWAV)
On 2 July 2022, 31 Disabled artists disrupted 30 locations with surreal interventions, in recognition of the 102nd anniversary of the first Dada International Exhibition. Dada is dead. Long live Dada!
The Artist is Not Present
Trapped in a hall of mirrors of my own making and pinned to Instagram like a butterfly, my WAIWAV intervention became a ritual of healing and transformation with more layers than a vanilla slice. Somehow, by the end of the day I created a shrine; and as absence and dislocation run through my veins the impression on others is unimaginable.
Instagram Lives feel like jumping off a cliff. In the space of a second you can be visible to anyone anywhere. I rotated my screen so that viewers experienced a mirror version of my intervention. So far so Dada. Instagram Lives combine extremely accessible technology with extremely limited options. I had committed to the portrait format when so much of the action spilled out across the landscape of my studio. This meant that there were corners to hide in. On the day, I put on my headphones and performed like no-one was watching. My performances are a form of live assemblage; the point is to mediate human connection through the object. I seek to disrupt a neuro-normative insistence on eye contact.
My hourly performances were streamed both at Site Gallery in Sheffield and anywhere in the world on a smartphone.The performance artist and filmmaker Naomi Morris, was with me in the studio. Naomi was my creative collaborator and co-conspirator, filming the action in glorious landscape format.
The Instagram Lives have now been archived and The Artist is Not Present. Traces of my performances can be found in a short film and a series of film stills so to be published on my website www.soniaboue.co.uk
This reflection was originally written for the WAIWAV website, and I should add that many of the images used in my intervention were created during my ACE funded R&D Neurophototherapy project.
Robyn Haddon at Site Gallery: “It looked excellent in the space and I feel it was successfully Dada.”
Naomi Morris in the studio: “I got to see this in the flesh, oh my goodness, what an honour! Glorious!”
@whatdohq on Instagram: We loved every part we were able to watch live, as well as the recorded videos. Fantastic concept, fantastic performance.
Sonia Boué is an artist and is currently an A-N Artist Board Member. Her multiform work explores home and the domestic as metaphors for exile and displacement. Sonia has a significant body of postmemory work. She is also a writer on autism and art, and a leading consultant for #neurodiversity in the arts. www.soniaboue.co.uk
