3-Phase. Nicola Singh: Pushing Attention – Performance 2

The second of two performances completed Nicola’s solo exhibition as part of ‘3-Phase’ in the Second Gallery. It incorporated song, spoken word, and movement, set against the transformed frames of weaving and print.

Pushing Attention fleshed out the traces of a private workshop into public. Newcastle based artist Nicola Singh invited artists Kate Sweeney, Phyllis Christopher and Janina Sabaliauskaite to be with their own and each other’s bodies in a workshop setting.

For Eastside Projects, Nicola invited intimate photographic traces from this workshop, and the overall sentiment, into an exhibition that encompassed performance, printmaking, textiles and text. Across time, Nicola translated the printed and photographic elements of the show into tapestry and embroidery – encouraging spillage and transformation between the mediums, pushing at visual representations of body whilst also cultivating a kind of durational ‘being-with’ relationship to the work.

Nicola bookended the exhibition with two performances – marking the changes and alterations to the show throughout its run, continuing her exploration of exhibition making through the prism of action and performance. This new work sits within the artist’s current research – finding different representations of form, touch and movement in relation to the body, with an emphasis on the ‘where, how, why and who with’ we touch and tend to our own bodies.