Stacey Allen & Katherine Johnson

Eat Your Words, 2007-2008

Untitled, 2008

Description

From the artist: "Eat Your Words is a collaboration between Stacey Allen and Katherine Johnson. It has been an ongoing project that has evolved through a number of incarnations, the most recent being a performance in Leeds Central Library in November 2007.

We took existing books and manipulated them by replacing some of their pages with edible ones, keeping the content by copying it word for word with edible ink. We then took these books and performed the action of tearing and eating them to an uniformed audience in the library.

By performing this action in this institutionalised environment, it is addressing the idea of social conduct, as we are breaking the invisible rules of society. By flouting the "no eating" policy in the library, and employing the aggressive action of tearing and eating books we wanted to expose the idea of proper conduct in social situations. The piece works off tension as the audience notice us eating the books and try to ignore it; they are torn between looking and commenting and keeping their own composure in this revered space.

We began this collaboration with video pieces, which differ slightly as they are a performance to camera, rather than an audience. The original books we ate were completely edible and contained lists of our regrets. These were dealing with idea of social conduct in the sense that we should not air our "dirty laundry" in public, we must keep these things to ourselves. The eating of them is an unpleasant experience, which is clear from our faces. We are being forced by social rules to keep a lid on our emotions, to not make a scene and behave according to these unwritten rules.

We have also reversed these videos, so it appears we regurgitate the pages which form into a book. We are giving these ephemeral words literal weight by making them material as pages of a book.

Hopefully either viewed as a video or an unexpected performance (where the audience may not even know they are an audience), we leave the audience feeling slightly uncomfortable and more aware of their own social conduct."

Contact Details