Visions
Visions is a performance encounter exploring blind spots; both biological, psychological and historical. The human eye takes shortcuts. In any one moment it cannot assimilate all the visual information coming from any singular image, the depth, colours, shapes, it’s all too much, too fast. In these instances it refers to the past, scrolling through all the things you’ve already seen. It makes an assumption. A leap of faith. It tells you what you see.
We’ve all got blind spots, parts of our identity we can only guess at. In this short encounter I will begin tracing an identity made up of vision and visions, imprints, and guesswork. The blind spots between the stories we tell of ourselves and the stories told about us.
““Beautiful and contemplative””
Performances
Mayfest 2013, Bristol, UK
One to One performance | Duration: 10 mins
Credits
Created by Jo Bannon.
Commissioned by MAYK and Bristol Ferment for Mayfest 2013. Supported by Residence.
Of Halos and Subsun
by Peoples in Pieces
Of Halos and Subsun is an immersive performance for a small audience who are seated inside a tent-like structure. Working predominantly with light, shadows, soundscapes and spoken text the tents canvas becomes a primitive cinema screen on which fleeting worlds are conjured and collapsed.
Using domestic tools and playing with scale and perception, images play with and lay bare the production of illusion. a leaf seen through torchlight becomes a forest, a bag of flour becomes a mountain and transports you to the arctic.
This work is interested in the duality of the way in which weather affects us; intimately as individuals and unavoidably existential as a collective. This is reflected through the way the audience is asked to view and participate in the work; together, collectively, producing a common climate.
Performances
Schwankhalle, Bremen, Germany
Dartington, UK
Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
Taunton Brewhouse, UK
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, UK
BAC, London, UK
Peoples in Pieces
Peoples in Pieces were an experimental theatre company which I co-founded in 2006. We worked together until 2008 making performance for theatres, galleries and public spaces which were concerned with climate in the audience, making weather, shifting scale and celebrated a laboratory style aesthetic.
Installation Performance for small audiences | Duration: 45 mins
Credits
Created by Peoples in Pieces: Jo Bannon, Birgit Binder, Rebecca Hall and Scott Harris.
Developed with the support of Arnolfini.
Claim to Fame
What’s your claim to fame?
Claim to Fame is a unique and playfully interactive enquiry which attempts to build a community of strangers linked solely by their brushes with stardom.
Convinced that everybody has one I have been asking people to take part in this exchange by answering the question 'what's your claim to fame?' This provocation has led to a collection of prized encounters, personal achievements and random celebrity meetings which are in turn surprising, touching and humorous.
Taking the form of a one to one encounter and evolving exhibition for public spaces, the work seeks to question our attitudes to familiarity and intimacy. It is an attempt to enliven the past, by reliving, retelling, recording and reunion. It is about slight yet intimate encounters and attempts to be one itself.
“I was really inspired by how delicate and touching your piece was in the foyer. I hope you make a publication of it some day so I can buy it. It really was one of my favourite things I saw over the festival.”
“Claim to Fame is a highly enjoyable, generous encounter. Jo Bannon is a charming host, teasing out our stories in a gentle and playful manner, which keeps the participating audience right at the centre of the experience.”
Credits
Created by Jo Bannon.
Interactive performance installation for public spaces | Duration: min 4 hours
Developed with the support of Residence, You and Your Work and Arnolfini.
A Field of Vision
Jo Bannon in collaboration with Manuel Vason
Field of Vision is a series of portraits made in collaboration with people with visual diversity exploring the intricacies of how we look and how we are looked at.
Working with photographer Manuel Vason, I have collaborated with Neil Harbisson, Jane Klemen and Simon Webb, to create individual portraits which attempt to convey both how they see the world and, as the subjects of the portraits, how they are seen.
“I’m interested in attempting an impossible task; to see the world through someone else’s eyes. How possible is it to convey how you see to another? As a visually impaired person, vision has always been something that is specific, contested, in flux and difficult to communicate.” – Jo Bannon
Exhibitions
Unlimited Festival, Southbank Centre, London, UK
Itau Cultural, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Credits
Created by Jo Bannon in collaboration with Manuel Vason
Commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Arts Council England.
Produced by MAYK.
15 Storms in a Teacup
by Peoples in Pieces
15 Storms in a Teacup is an immersive theatre piece for a small audience, cultivated from our very kitchens, which mixes the mundane with the quietly spectacular. It is an attempt to conjure micro-weather systems in a teacup, jar or closest domestic appliance. Through half closed eyelids enter our world of miniatures and kitchen sink science where tornados are mastered and sandstorms and typhoons are born.
15 Storms in a Teacup negotiates with the nature of humanness, attempting to make evident our internal and external weather systems. Our experiments are small scale and make shift in nature. They are as tentative and fragile as the human hand trying to conjure them. We call rain to us, beckon thunderstorms and attempt to sit together amidst the storm.
Performances
Dartington, UK
Margate, UK
Arnolfini, Bristol
Staged Performance for small audiences | Duration: 45 mins
Credits
Created by Peoples in Pieces: Jo Bannon, Birgit Binder, Rebecca Hall and Scott Harris.
Developed with the support of Arnolfini.