Parallel Play

Parallel play (March 2023),  Performative drawing.  Sound recording on a loop, live performance, mixed media on grass paper and Fabriano paper

The performance Parallel Play was co-created through dialogue and experimentation by myself and a fellow artist Johann Don-Daniel. We discussed themes of decolonising, freedom of movement and the power of media. We then continued the dialogue with the drawing medium. Using the sound of one another’s mark making and infrequent peripheral vision we worked on this diptych for several hours in stages.

The name of the work refers to a stage in child developmental psychology where children play adjacent to each other but there’s no obvious interaction between them in the play activity. The form of play follows an earlier stage in social development, onlooker play, and is followed by associative play where children interact and continuously co-create their shared play taking complimentary roles.

Parallel Play is an ongoing project. See below a schedule of live performances:

11 March 2023, The Koppel Project Station, London

16 March 2023, Koppel X, Piccadilly, London

25 June 2023, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Camera: Cyrus Hung