Richard Layzell. Falling Phoebe - production shot, 2007

The Manifestation – Falling Phoebe

A new site-specific installation by Layzell/Koswycz

Location: St Martin's Church, West Stockwell Street, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1HN
Open: Thursday – Sunday, 12.00pm – 8.00pm
from 6 – 28 June 2009

Private View: Friday 5 June 6 - 8pm

Admission free

Presented by firstsite in collaboration with Colchester Arts Centre

The Manifestation is a unique collaboration founded on the global dialogues of artists Richard Layzell and Tania Koswycz.

From London, Glasgow and Stroud to Colchester, the conversations of Layzell and Koswycz remain at the core of The Manifestation, acting as a commentary and introduction to thematic threads, which at St Martin’s includes the works Falling Phoebe and The Stumbling Block.

Of the many Colchester connections inherent in the installation, Layzell’s great-great-grandmother Phoebe’s ‘fall’ was re-enacted in St Botolph’s Street, in the town centre, by performer Phoebe Davies outside a corner shop called ‘Good for You’. For Layzell to recently uncover Colchester as his ancestral home is no less surprising than Phoebe’s eventual marriage at St Martin’s in the Fields in London in 1875.

Tania Koswycz first came to prominence as one of four artists created by Layzell for an installation at firstsite in 2002. She has gone on to become an equal collaborative partner and curator. The voices of Tania, Phoebe and Layzell are present and absent within The Manifestation, both known and unknown.

The Manifestation has been re-imagined by the artists specifically for presentation at St Martin’s Church and comprises film, sculpture and intervention as one installation.

 

Richard Layzell is an artist and performer. He has a diverse approach to audience, context and artform, from gallery to architectural intervention. His interactive installation Tap Ruffle and Shave was experienced by 100,000 people in galleries across the UK, and his embodiment of the entrepreneur Bailey Savage appeared worldwide. His development of the role of ‘visionaire’ in industry has been considered seminal. He is the author of Enhanced Performance and describes his collaboration with Tania Koswycz as deeply illuminating.

Tania Koswycz is a London-based artist with a growing reputation for perspicacity and consistency. Her practice embraces redundant technologies reframed within a contemporary discourse, alongside a finely tuned aesthetic of absence. A seminal work, Lighten Up, was shown in London, Germany and Australia. Her dialogic voice has a strong virtual presence and she is a contributor to Digital Creativity. She is represented by Davies and Davies (London) and Weiss (Stuttgart) and is entirely fictional.

 

Associated events:

Performance
MAKE THAT CHOICE
Solo performance by Richard Layzell
Some chances come your way just once in a lifetime. This is one of them. The light is about to shine on you. Can you afford to step aside?
Saturday 27 June at 8pm
Colchester Arts Centre
Church Street, Colchester, Essex CO1 1NF
tel: 01206 500900 to book, £6 / £3.50 concs

Talk
Defining an artist: an evening with Richard Layzell
Thursday 2 July, 6.30pm
Brentwood Theatre
Free - tel: 01277 200305