| Tract Live A rt |
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| Site specific live art and performance in and around Penzance, Cornwall, over three weekends. Summer 2006 | ||||||||||
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| Information on this site will be updated as part of the Tract Live Art Programme | ||||||||||
Melissa
Longenecker
Saturday
19 August
Charter & Manifest
The artist walks Penzance, pen and paper in hand. Aiming to walk the entirety
of the town, street by street, lane by lane, she wanders unaided by “proper”
mechanically printed maps or previous phenomenological knowledge of Penzance.
Asking for directions, the artist "commissions" hand-drawn maps
of small areas of the town from the people of Penzance. After collecting
hundreds upon hundreds of drawings, these hand drawn maps are taken back
to a central location.
The drawings are laid out, compiled and fused together piece by piece
to create a large-scale hand drawn map of the town. Through this process
the public is invited to actively discuss the map by adding missing buildings,
streets, historical points, sites of personal import, places of residence,
work and play, by drawing on, cutting away and redrawing sections as they
see fit to add to the overall accuracy of the map.
Scales, perceptions, drawing styles and the individual importance of place
collides, shifts and mutates to create a large-scale hand drawn map of
Penzance by the people of Penzance.
Fall
During the week leading up to the second Tract weekend, Melissa Longenecker explored the streets of Penzance in order to create a detailed map of the town. Appropriately for a stranger to the area she did this by asking residents for directions to a variety of landmarks and locations, which were drawn as little street-maps on scraps of paper of different shapes and sizes. Some of these drawings were meticulous, some slap-dash: all bore the imprint and personality of the person she spoke to and became a record of that encounter and ensuing conversation.
On the Saturday afternoon she set to work assembling 100s of these fragments into a single map or collaged image of Penzance, kneeling amongst the shoppers on Causewayhead in the middle of the town. Many stopped and spontaneously offered advice and suggestions to her. And when finished the resulting object looked disarmingly beautiful.
Called Charter & Manifest, this was one of the few contributions to Tract that did not rely on any theatrical devices or props. Indeed there was no division between audience and performer. Instead Melissa acted as a facilitator and put the community itself centre stage. In capturing the civic pride and hospitality of the local people she made a powerful work of art that was full of humanity and optimism.
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