Woman Under Kitchen Utensils

Performance
Woman Under Kitchen Utensils

The Object live performance begins at the Whitechapel Gallery, proceeds to the Food Hall on Brick Lane, and then returns to the Whitechapel Gallery. This performance is an integral component of Ates’s ongoing project that aims to engage with audiences who do not frequently visit museums or galleries. The Object costume will have a household kitchen utensils on the train of the costume and the Performance Artist will drag these on the street of Brick Lane.

Featured kitchen utensils on the Object performance also makes references to Asian households objects. The utensils serve as both literal and symbolic elements of the performance. The use of kitchen utensils highlights the universal necessity of food, emphasising it as a fundamental human right rather than a mere commodity. These objects also evoke themes of memory and identity, allowing the public to connect with them through their own cultural experiences or recognize them as representative of a particular culture.

This performance is part of the Archipelago: Visions in Orbit exhibition that is curated by a group of 14 students from the MA Curating Art and Public Programmes course at the Whitechapel Gallery and London South Bank University, August 15th 2024 – January 5th 2025. Five small photographs and sound alone pieces will be exhibited at this exhibition.

This performance aims for a public engagement programme and outreach and endeavour to create a space for the East London public. This performance also reflects the main objective of the exhibition, which delves into the emergence and erosion of individual and collective identities and explores how political demarcation and shared histories shape our interconnected cultural landscapes.

The Artist writes;

I want to express the experiences of displacement, separation, belonging and concealment through these powerful everyday objects. I’m interested in how these kitchen objects can relate to the place/s in our mind, some of which have ambiguous and complex universal languages. How can an object evoke strong memories in relation to where they belong to or where they come from? I am also interested in the objects that become nostalgic, almost surreal in our mind. The sound that these objects will make also play an important role during the performance. 

This performance will be activated by Zoe Simon.