Pea Arts About

FLARE 3 was a three-day event exploring different approaches to understanding connections between the mind and body through live encounter. It was organized by three artists undertaking PhDs at Northumbria University, Helen Collard , Denys Blacker and Harriet Plewis , who established FLARE ( Forum for Living Art Research and Education ) in 2015. This third annual event spread the exploratory activities across three days, hosted by Vane contemporary art gallery. Each day was led by one of the organizers to investigate via the participation of artists, scholars and members of the public the broader themes and issues involved in their research projects. In this written response, I reflect on the activities that most (re)ignited my curiosities. Co-Arise Unfortunately, I could not attend the first day, Sync-Down, led by Harriet Plewis. The day’s focus on ‘sly, dormant and illicit research methods’ and its workshop exploring visualization by drawing on the principles of ‘lucid dr...

Last week my partner and I went to see Clash , an incredibly powerful and immersive Egyptian drama about protestors from different sides of the conflict trapped in a police truck. I highly recommend seeing it. It was screened in the Gallery at the Tyneside Cinema, a small space with only three rows of seats. As the opening credits began, 2 people came in noisily, sat behind us, and proceeded to talk and munch loudly with open mouths on popcorn. They were hardly at the omniplex to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 . I cannot abide, or indeed cope with, that kind of noise. My choices were: Move. Why should I? Plus the noise would continue to be a problem, possibly not just for me.   Have an anxiety attack. Why should I? What would it achieve apart from harm to myself and upset to others? Say something about it. I did the latter. I said aloud, ‘Are you going to eat like that the whole time? Because that’s disgusting.’ The first part was sufficient, and raised a murmur of ...