A gathering of people, projects and ideas connected to community and arts practice.
Engage with artists from diverse fields of practice including:
Visiting international VCA teacher Rajni Shah - UK performance artist
Kate Sulan - Director of Rawcus Theatre
Pia Smith - consultant at Effective Change Pty Ltd and freelance writer/editor
give what you can, take what you need is a playful exploration of notions of community and conversation through gift exchange.
Drawing on Rajni's research projects into gift-giving as intervention in public space, this interactive performance is designed to take place in busy communal areas. Passers-by are greeted by a large dinner table, where various other members of the public may be seated at any time. Newcomers are invited to take part by accepting a gift, entering into a relationship with the gathering for as long or as short a time as they choose.
give what you can, take what you need was originally commissioned by Futuresonic 2008 and the Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster, and toured in 2008-2009 alongside Dinner with America.This piece can still occasionally be booked. Please use the contact form.
City Gallery at Waterfront Park and the Gibbes Museum
Charleston, South Carolina
installations, performance and seminars
This article was written for Dance Theatre Journal and exposes some of the processes involved in the making of the art book Point and Place which was awarded a Birgit Skiold Award of Excellence at the London Artists Book Fair 2007. Includes images and words by Julie Brixey-Williams, Camilla Brueton, Simon Kennedy, Theron U.Schmidt, Rajni Shah and Caroline Younger.
The Future is on the Table #3 is the culmination of an open dialogue which started when artists Gwylene Gallimard and Jean-Marie Mauclet (South Carolina, US) sent as presents 58 homemade three legged stools.
Rajni has been developing an ongoing collaboration with photographer Manuel Vason. Working with Lucille Acevedo-Jones, Rajni and Manuel find unusual sites in which to create provocative new images specifically for the camera based on current concerns and practices.
The New Barbarian Collection Fall 2007: bringing your dreams to life, one nightmare at a time was a Pocha Nostra performance made in collaboration with Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Violeta Luna and Roberto Sifuentes from La Pocha Nostra and a group of UK collaborators.
Field is a live art project which looks at space and spaces. It is a controvertible space: one that refuses to prioritise interpretation before experience. To ask “What is it? Is it this or that”, is pointless. The answer could always be yes or no, so it is always nothing. Field does not exclude the possibility of other times and other places. It is a story with no plot, no resolution. There is no clarified gameplan or artefact, and has no distinct ideas to validate it. - Matt Davis
Rajni co-curated 'A Proper Afternoon' with Matt Davis as part of Field at Chisenhale Dance Space in 2005, working with artists Britt Hatzius, Davina Silver, Ollie Bown, and Silvia Mercuriali. The event was a spontaneous collaboration involving various levels of music and performance installation using natural light change as a backdrop.
Rajni choreographed and performed in this short film by Theron U. Schmidt which was originally screened as part of the live performance The Crossing at 7Stages Theatre in Atlanta GA, USA. The film depicts a body talking and listening to itself at a distance, the ways in which getting out of one’s skin also means getting into one’s skin.
Point and Place is a group of artists from across various disciples who come together regularly to talk, eat and make new works.