Reluctant Performer (Fringe)

Reluctant Performer (Fringe) brings together images from an ongoing collaboration of the same name between Anna Lucas, Adam Gillam and Alice Walton. Playing with the idea of being reluctant performers, appearing (and disappearing) in their making, this set of photographs captures and extends this strange and inexplicable pursuit.

The site of production resembles a ramshackle set, in which props, bodies and equipment are constantly framed and reframed through activity. Seemingly motivated by a desire to capture the determined efforts of the artists to remove themselves from the frame and looping between stage, action and the incidental, a sort of absurdist dance emerges. The use of reflective surfaces gently implicates the artist and viewer alike, almost suggesting an invitation to join, direct or disrupt proceedings.

The idea of ‘making an image’ serves as a pivot on which activity converges and from which photographs are made. Bursts of attentive action emerge - unfathomable, embarrassed, full of serious (but baffling) intent.

The images collected here move across and behind this activity. It is not immediately clear where the process begins or how an image is finished, what is center stage or material out-cut, but nevertheless an obscure process of direction and intervention asserts itself. Part artwork, part document, part irreverent parade, situated somewhere between the artist's hesitancy and their resignation.