After reading about Michael Pinchbeck’s work “Sit with me for a moment and remember” a number of questions came to me in regards to our chosen site, the public high street. How often do we walk past people with our heads down and our eyes locked to the screen of a phone? How can we share one space with so many strangers and yet pass through it remembering nothing about it or them? When do we ever just “sit for a moment and remember”, taking in all that is around? Our site, a busy public space, includes busy shoppers on a mission to reach their destination, exchange their money for a product and then leave just as quickly as they arrived. This thought inspired me to create a piece that disrupted the flow of the high street, a pause in the audience’s (i.e the public) lives, taking a moment to stop and look around them without removing them physically from the site.

Reflecting Lavery’s “25 instructions for performing in cities” I wanted to create a piece of work much like his seventeenth instruction “build a forest in a city” (Lavery, 2005, 236).
A turfed area with potted trees would disrupt the space and with two deck chairs and soft bird song playing from hidden speakers the audience would be invited to sit with the actor and have a conversation with a stranger. Opening a dialogue in this way between two strangers is particularly special as the high street contains so many people and voices that very rarely cross paths and there is very rarely time allowed for human interaction, or else there is a risk of breaking the rhythm of the busy shopping strip.
The concrete, economic space of the high street is contrasted against the peaceful spectacle of a green forest rejecting the original view of the space and encouraging people to review how they see the space they are in.

This idea of rejecting the current use of the site or creating a piece that contrasts, was inspired by Claire Blundell Jones’ project “Walking, the Western and the tumbleweed” and her desire to “become aware of suburban details and social space….exploring the notions of private and public space [and] create a new playful space between myself and the unsuspecting audience, who can potentially begin to imagine alternatives in their local environment, re-imagining it.” (Jones, 2010, 88)
Although our piece will not involve getting lost, wandering aimlessly, in the city in order to break the flow of the busy street, it would disrupt the high street and it’s visitors. This will ultimately remove them from their isolated pathways through the space, inviting them to take a moment to look up and around and to review how they see the space.

Blundell Jones, C. (2010) Walking, the Western and the tumbleweed. Visual Studies. 25 (1) 87-88
Lavery, C (2005) Teaching Performance Studies: 25 instructions for performance in cities. Studies in Theatre and Performance. 25 (3) 229-236