Dear performance art,
I miss you.
I miss you, even when you left me feeling fatigued from working with you, when you left me feeling drained from watching someone else work with you or when you left me feeling awestruck by those little moments of reflection and pause that you gifted me… you were wild and fun and accepting, a pansexual polyamorist alien discipline who liked to feel the warmth of many bodies at many different points in time and space.
Our relationship was akin to a deeply felt romance, at first a long distance admiration which then blossomed into the delicate rough tensions of serious play… all that you had ever asked for was that I would give you the time, care and attention that you needed.
For over a decade, I held you close and felt comfort in your embrace as I performed and watched others perform within various institutions of art and education, out in the public realm and even between the domestic-digital spaces… I felt so secure in myself working with you, even when you were working with other performers or went under the pseudonym of “Live Art” or felt out of reach.
But then a variety of circumstances ranging from being traumatised by perpetration, feeling trapped by the pandemic, slowly becoming numb from numerous bouts of grief and many other small fractures broke our bond… Instead of feeling confident, self-assured and comfortably challenged, feelings of doubt, trauma and overwhelm began to make me like I was drowning whilst you could do nothing but watch.
Perhaps this was the point in which our relationship broke down by my pushing you away, even when I was in denial around the fact, hoping that you would fight for me… but then you didn’t fight for me, as your time, care and attention went to other folk who were making performance work.
I grew bitter from your abandonment, feeling lost as an artist who put nearly everything into making only performance work and as a result feeling critical of the culture surrounding you, feeling like I wanted to protect any new partners making performance art from the tempting trappings of the practice.
Slowly, my bitterness bled away and I started to look back at the little moments of our relationship, laughter and tears and quiet pauses orbiting around us like celestial bodies in our very own intimate cosmos… an education of beautiful agony derived from an unequal partnership dynamic.
I don’t think that you ever mean to hurt me or any of your other partners who had been let down by you, but it does happen and it hurts to see you embrace the new everyday without ever really pausing to take a break and reflect on your behaviour, especially when you are influenced by folk with ulterior motives… you never grieve for our absence, you just move on by avoiding the topic of the past, because you are constantly pushing for the present.
I am older now, having taken steps towards a process of recovery where I am acknowledging the work that I undertook towards building stronger foundations (with the support of friends, family and medical professionals) whilst also giving myself the grace to accept that I am still fragile in some ways and require more care… I may not have the same energy, confidence and resilience that I had when I was younger, but I am also not burning myself out through the self-imposed masochism of constantly pushing beyond my capacity to live.
Perhaps one day I will perform with you again, when my foundations are much stronger and when I feel the need to convey something beyond the concrete visual language, something that reaches out to those who need that sense of wonder, connection and pause from the everyday… I don’t think I could go back to loving you like I did back then, but maybe we could reach a place of cooperative friendship with a better sense of where the boundaries are now between us.
I miss you, but nostalgia is not a house that we can live in, only visit before it collapses under its own weight.
Much warmth and admiration,
D x
(Written by the artist in January 2025)
I miss you.
I miss you, even when you left me feeling fatigued from working with you, when you left me feeling drained from watching someone else work with you or when you left me feeling awestruck by those little moments of reflection and pause that you gifted me… you were wild and fun and accepting, a pansexual polyamorist alien discipline who liked to feel the warmth of many bodies at many different points in time and space.
Our relationship was akin to a deeply felt romance, at first a long distance admiration which then blossomed into the delicate rough tensions of serious play… all that you had ever asked for was that I would give you the time, care and attention that you needed.
For over a decade, I held you close and felt comfort in your embrace as I performed and watched others perform within various institutions of art and education, out in the public realm and even between the domestic-digital spaces… I felt so secure in myself working with you, even when you were working with other performers or went under the pseudonym of “Live Art” or felt out of reach.
But then a variety of circumstances ranging from being traumatised by perpetration, feeling trapped by the pandemic, slowly becoming numb from numerous bouts of grief and many other small fractures broke our bond… Instead of feeling confident, self-assured and comfortably challenged, feelings of doubt, trauma and overwhelm began to make me like I was drowning whilst you could do nothing but watch.
Perhaps this was the point in which our relationship broke down by my pushing you away, even when I was in denial around the fact, hoping that you would fight for me… but then you didn’t fight for me, as your time, care and attention went to other folk who were making performance work.
I grew bitter from your abandonment, feeling lost as an artist who put nearly everything into making only performance work and as a result feeling critical of the culture surrounding you, feeling like I wanted to protect any new partners making performance art from the tempting trappings of the practice.
Slowly, my bitterness bled away and I started to look back at the little moments of our relationship, laughter and tears and quiet pauses orbiting around us like celestial bodies in our very own intimate cosmos… an education of beautiful agony derived from an unequal partnership dynamic.
I don’t think that you ever mean to hurt me or any of your other partners who had been let down by you, but it does happen and it hurts to see you embrace the new everyday without ever really pausing to take a break and reflect on your behaviour, especially when you are influenced by folk with ulterior motives… you never grieve for our absence, you just move on by avoiding the topic of the past, because you are constantly pushing for the present.
I am older now, having taken steps towards a process of recovery where I am acknowledging the work that I undertook towards building stronger foundations (with the support of friends, family and medical professionals) whilst also giving myself the grace to accept that I am still fragile in some ways and require more care… I may not have the same energy, confidence and resilience that I had when I was younger, but I am also not burning myself out through the self-imposed masochism of constantly pushing beyond my capacity to live.
Perhaps one day I will perform with you again, when my foundations are much stronger and when I feel the need to convey something beyond the concrete visual language, something that reaches out to those who need that sense of wonder, connection and pause from the everyday… I don’t think I could go back to loving you like I did back then, but maybe we could reach a place of cooperative friendship with a better sense of where the boundaries are now between us.
I miss you, but nostalgia is not a house that we can live in, only visit before it collapses under its own weight.
Much warmth and admiration,
D x
(Written by the artist in January 2025)
