This comes to you free and untamed  so get it while it’s hot!

More info: http://www.mkgallery.org/events/2013_05_30/scratch_night/

Photo: Christa Holka
Dress: David Curtis-Ring

For her second Essex outing, Rita Grebe comes to Leigh on Sea to host her unique take on Essex birds. Part of a Sundown evening, show starts at 7.30pm . More here:

Rita will take you on a guide of Essex birds on May 4th at Cafe Valise, Leigh on Sea, following its sell out debut at Metal Culture in Southend.

The pilot performance in May is inspired by Smith’s workshops previously held on
Wallasea Island in Essex, which facilitated over 80 birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts
of all ages to identify their own ‘inner bird’ (fantastical or real; rare or commonly
sighted on Wallasea).

There is a blurring between this collection of inner birds and ‘avian-therianism’: a darker, more
elusive identity where a person believes themselves to share the behaviours and
physical attributes of a bird.

The collection has inspired the creation of both The Lost Grouse and Rita (The Great Crested) Grebe, Smith’s
own inner birds; who will take the audience on an imagined tour of Essex birds
using JIZZ, a birding identification tool.

Photo: Christa Holka

Costume: David Curtis-Ring

That’s some blank canvas.

But now, with the project launching next month, I’m hopelessly hooked on the birds and our insatiable relationship with them through the bins.

There’s a strong correlation between the practice of birdwatching and live art. There are the tools of the trade, the notebooks, the obsessive note-taking, the capturing of process as not only evidence of seeing something and listing what it is you think you have seen, but also writing and drawing as a way of embodying experiences; of bringing the practice of seeing into the body. This was the reason behind Locating Your Inner Bird, a series of workshops I created and ran in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on Wallasea Island, for their Wild Coast Weekend.  Participants didn’t only stick to the birds on Wallasea but drew right into their dreams and imagined flights of fancy. Our ability to shape shift and heighten reality is at times close to the avian therians who imagine phantom wings or claws.

The practice of ‘twitching’ (going to see a bird whatever the circumstances, wherever you are) is directly visceral; its origins from 1950s birding expert Howard Medhurst whose relentless shivering through enduring harsh elements and rough modes of travel encouraged comical enactments from others and secured the term.

There’s also the liveness of birdwatching. To identify a bird, you really have to be there, preferably with one other. Or, 3,000 others, as in the case of the Golden-winged Warbler who should have been in Guatemala but turned up lost in a Tesco’s car park in New Hythe, Kent. There’s also just a fleeting moment with which to look, then identify. It’s often a performance in itself with no second chances, no repetition.

It’s actually not about listing hundred of birds, another notch on a Year List, as I once thought, but more about seeing the one-off, the out-of-place and the first seen. All of which offer the viewer a heightened reality, a disturbance into the everyday or a shift in perspective: some even talk about the relationship of observer and ‘inhabiting’ a subject as being in flux; a kind of in-the-moment complicity. To me, these are the drivers of live art.

See Birdwatchers’ Wives: 18^th April, 8pm, Metal

Tickets Here:

http://birdwatcherswives.eventbrite.com/

Wallasea Island, 2012

Photo: Christa Holka

Meet new birdie character, Rita Grebe who emerged preening from The Locating Your Inner Bird workshops on Wallasea Island. LYIB took place as part of the RSPB’s Wild Coast Weekend on their reserve in Essex. Over 80 contributors located their inner bird through discussion, guidance by RSPB member and expert birdwatcher Gwyn Delve and through my use of  shamanic and creative exercises.  Rita is a Great Crested Grebe and can be found on Wallasea Island. She’s one of the handful of birds RSPB founder Emily Williamson wanted to conserve as they faced extinction in the late 1800s from the fashion trade. The down of Great Crested Grebes was highly sought after as ‘fur’ for garments, while their feathers perched on women’s hats. Williamson founded The Plumage League (the forerunner to the RSPB), which was a protest action group, resulting in the Grebe’s survival and the formation of the modern RSPB.

Rita was devised with this in mind: I wanted to avoid feathers. Co-conspirator David Curtis-Ring, who brilliantly designed the head dress, used a mixture of synthetic hair and fake fur. Rita is born! We’re constructing  the dress in time for the pilot performance on the 18^th April at Metal. 8pm will see the unveiling of Rita Grebe and her idiosyncratic guide to Essex birds.

Book your tickets here: http://birdwatcherswives.eventbrite.com/

I’m Artist in Residence at Metal Culture, along of course with Rita and The Lost Grouse:

http://www.metalculture.com/latest-news/caroline-smith-artist-in-residence.html

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England and Metal.

Photo: Christa Holka

Abra Cadabra in ‘Letting Go’ at Metal Culture, Chalkwell Park, 2011

Meet Abracadabra (formerly M. Abrakadabrovic) who turns her ‘Mind Magic’ into motivational seminars to help businesses and entrepreneurs generate killer business ideas.  She’s often supported by Lazy Susan Seagull lending a beak.

The Lost Grouse of Wallasea Island. Photo: Christa Holka

The new project ‘Birdwatchers’ Wives’ launches soon in collaboration with the RSPB on Wallasea Island, supported using public funding by Arts Council England, Metal and the RSPB on Wallasea Island. Meet The Lost Grouse, (picture above) who emerged from the Locating Your Inner Bird workshops held on the Island as part of the Wild Coast Weekend, along with interviews and research on local birding. Watch this space! More coming…with wings!

The project started from a comedy lab devised by Oreet Ashery at Metal. See this to get the gist:

and this:

http://www.metalculture.com/latest-news/caroline-smith-artist-in-residence.html