MAstars 2014: Jennie Howell, MA Performance & Visual Practices

MAstars 2014: Jennie Howell, MA Performance & Visual Practices Jennie Howell, Extracts From The Evolution of The Drum Stick and The Sound of Sugar, 2014. Multisensory live art performance experienced through sound, music, visual and culinary art, with host Jennie Howell and guests. Credit: Eva Voutsaki

Joseph Young selects Jennie Howell from the University of Brighton for MAstars


It started with a trail of cocoa beans leading up a long set of stairs to a performance studio and an (almost) empty banqueting table, on which were laid a single, battered recipe book and a knitted cupcake - abandoned there rather than artfully placed. Our protagonist, Jennie Howell, wore a green evening dress and welcomed us into the room as we found ourselves places at the table, assisted by her collaborators who waited and attended on us for the next 40 or so minutes. The setting was extremely informal and the conversation unforced and unhurried. It didn’t really feel like a performance at all and I guess that was the point. We were guests at a minimalist dinner party, or ceremony, whose purpose was deliberately opaque.

Jennie Howell Extracts From The Evolution 2

Jennie Howell, Extracts From The Evolution of The Drum Stick and The Sound of Sugar, 2014. Multisensory live art performance experienced through sound, music, visual and culinary art, with host Jennie Howell and guests. Credit: Kan Lailey

Once seated we were invited to design and draw our own plate setting, around which we constructed cocoa-dusted outlines of cutlery, kitchen implements and drum sticks. Into this fictional setting was 'dropped' recorded sound and live music whilst we laid out our imaginary banqueting table(s). Finally, a selection of vegan cakes and chocolates was offered and we ate these from our crudely drawn plates.

I was reminded of the work of performance duo Helen Paris and Leslie Hill, who under the name Curious invite audiences to construct and inhabit imaginary spaces created through participation and sensory stimulus, the deeper meanings of the work unfolding in a magical, matter-of-fact moment that creeps up on its unsuspecting audience.

Jennie Howell Extracts From The Evolution 3

Jennie Howell, Extracts From The Evolution of The Drum Stick and The Sound of Sugar, 2014. Multisensory live art performance experienced through sound, music, visual and culinary art, with host Jennie Howell and guests. Credit: Eva Voutsaki

Whilst Jennie’s offering felt incomplete, with her banquet perhaps withholding more than it gave, the central images continue to haunt and to challenge. Somewhere in her trail of cocoa beans is the story of a visual culture and performance practice exploring a fragmented United Kingdom still bereft from the loss of Empire, inhabited by a people struggling to create an holistic, post-imperial identity.

We left with a small promotional pack (an offering of raw cocoa beans), a sales pitch and a choral song, as we followed the trail of beans back out into the late summer evening air.

Selected by Joseph Young
Published November, 2014

View Joseph Young's profile >


About Joseph Young

My original training as an actor at Drama Centre London led to a successful career in the West End and on TV between 1982 and 2005. In that year, I completed an MA at University of Brighton, refocusing my practice as an artist working in sound and performance. I began a new chapter of artistic creation: making work for galleries, site-specific venues, the public realm and various media including radio, film and the internet.


Further information

jenniferirenehowell.wordpress.com
artofnoises.com
arts.brighton.ac.uk/study/fine-art/performance-and-visual-practices-ma-brighton

 

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