Slipping Into Slipping Away

Nov 14 — 16, 2024
Field:

Performance

 Location:

Foyer, Western Front

 Time:

7:15 p.m.

Description:

Chipo Chipaziwa presented Slipping Into Slipping Away, a performance that explored memory, legibility, liminal encounters, and her experience with psychoanalysis.

The performance began as audience members arrived in the foyer. After having their tickets scanned, they were directed to the reception desk, where Chipaziwa was positioned to manage coat check. Gradually, she transformed everyday front-of-house actions—light cleaning, organizing print materials, and turning on gallery signage—into a performance. Over the course of thirty minutes, Chipaziwa performed ten sets of actions across Western Front's foyer and stairwell, to play with the power dynamics between artist and audience, and art worker and visiting public, to challenge traditional audience-performer relations.

The performance extended the research in Chipaziwa's artist book My Mother My Home (2024), in which she remediates her past performances and interrogates the ever-pervasive white gaze on Black life, art, and being by proposing alternative methodologies of archiving performance art without photographic depictions of the body. 

Slipping Into Slipping Away was presented over three nights.

Presented with support from the Canada Council for Arts, BC Arts Council, and the Government of Canada. With thanks to Justine A. Chambers and Autumn Knight for mentorship.

Video documentation is available upon request.
Chipo Chipaziwa stands at Western Front’s reception desk. Her gaze is focused on the cloth in her hand, which she is using wiping the counter top in front of her.
Chipo Chipaziwa leans over Western Front’s reception desk. Her red nails are placed on a button of the notice board TV screen. She cranes her neck to look at the set up screen static.
An audience stands looking at vinyl text on a wall. Chipo Chipaziwa stands closest to the text with her hands clasped behind her back.
Chipo Chipaziwa opens the door to EDAM. She brushes shoulders with an audience member wearing a black leather jacket.
Standing in a corner with her back towards the audience, Chipo Chipaziwa reaches her arm out. Her hand makes a fist and her spine takes on an S shaped curve. She is barefoot on the hardwood floor.
Dressed in all black with a wide stance, Chipo Chipaziwa clasps her hands above her head. She makes direct and intense eye contact with an audience member in a red beret and plaid hoodie.
Chipo Chipaziwa gazes over her shoulder. Her red fingernail points in the direction she is looking. The audience follows her sight line.
Chipo Chipaziwa locks eyes with an audience member. Her mouth is slightly open as if about to say something. Her brows are slightly furrowed conveying the intensity of her gaze.
The audience stands with heads tilted downward. Chipo Chipaziwa is folded on the floor facing down.
Chipo Chipaziwa stands facing a wall. One of her arms is straight with the hand flicked upward at the wrist. The other is bent behind her with her palm facing outward.
The audience views Chipo Chipaziwa from the foyer. She turns away from a wall. Her left arm is bent inward and upwards with her fingers curling into a loose fist. Her right hand flicks upward at the wrist. Her facial expression is serious and moody.
Chin tilted downward, Chipo Chipaziwa stares directly ahead of her. One foot is ahead of the other. One arm is bent upward at the elbow and wrist. The other folds fully with the fingers of its connected hand pressing into her shoulder.
The audience watches Chipo Chipaziwa walk barefoot up Western Front’s staircase from the foyer. Her black shoes are left behind at the bottom of the stairs.
The audience sits on the steps of the stairs. Chipo Chipaziwa stands beside them. She holds her hands out in front of her. Her thumb and pointer fingers take on L like shapes. While her other fingers are loosely curled.
An audience member with a bright red hat stands beside Chipo Chipaziwa who looks to her right. In the foreground there are two audience members.
Chipo Chipaziwa sits at Western Front’s reception desk. She looks upward. Her expression looks slightly annoyed. In front of her to the side is a clipboard and blue pen.

Captions:

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Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.

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