Archive Fran Cottell’s Cab Drivers Saturday 23 September

Billed as a series of taxi rides around Penzance, Fran Cottell’s piece did not seem, initially, a terribly enticing prospect. Having signed up for the ride, however, I was introduced to fellow punter, Chris - who turned out to be an art-historian from Cardiff - and the two of us were ushered into a ‘Nippy’ taxi cab, and whisked through the streets of Penzance to the harbour by an affable female cabbie wearing a rugby shirt.

We got out, and as three people who had never met before, watched the waves lapping against the sea-wall; Chris and I talking about art and living in Cornwall, the taxi-driver about her fear of the sea and her experience of losing a friend in a fishing accident.

We then had 10 minutes each with a relay of 3 other taxi drivers, who, in similar fashion took us to their favourite thing in Penzance, which amusingly in the case of the last one was his souped up black Ford Mondeo, parked in the fore-court of Penlee House.

Fran’s piece was deceptive. The visual content of the work e.g. the views of Penzance were not very important, nor even was the process of the journey itself. Both were only a backdrop to the human drama which took place in the encounters between the ‘art-visitor’ and the taxi drivers.

Like a form of mobile speed dating, the work was a highly choreographed quartet of facilitated social exchanges, in which the boundary between art and life, audience and performer, was dissolved. I know this because I went into the taxi thinking I was a member of the ‘audience’, but then found myself explaining the work to the taxi driver who I had originally expected to be the performer.

The working through of the various role-reversals that resulted was refreshing: an intrigue that became possible only because the artist herself had managed to remain completely detached from the work while it was in progress.