This monthly reading group is a platform for discovering and debating current topics in art, cultural theory and experimental fiction. Sessions are hosted by invited guests who have suggested texts that have been influential on their practice or form part of their research.

Artist and writer Tamarin Norwood has chosen for the March Extra Curricular reading group a selection of essays by American academic Richard Schechner. Between Theater and Anthropology, published in 1985, primarily considers live events which fall outside common Western definitions of dramatic performance and theatre. Norwood proposes to use his survey for a discussion around live art and performance making today. 

The session will be specifically structured around Chapter 2: Restoration of Behavior, and Norwood proposes the following questions: Do reconstructions restore past events, create new ones, or restore versions of the past that never happened? Are all performances restorations? Where is the line between performance, rehearsal, workshop and everyday life?

Tamarin Norwood

Tamarin Norwood is an artist and writer. Her work addresses the possibility of reciprocation between art and writing; practice and everyday life; production and circulation. She is currently artist in residence at Modern Art Oxford, and recent works have been shown and performed at Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, the Other Room and the London Word Festival. Recent critical and experimental texts have appeared in activate Journal, AN Magazine, ICA’s Roland, and for the Live Art Development Agency, and artist books include DO SOMETHING ((U)LS 2009), was (LemonMelon 2012), Fitful Thing (Chisenhale Gallery 2012). Norwood holds first class degrees from Oxford University (2004) and Central Saint Martins (2007) in Linguistics and Fine Art respectively, and gained her MFA in Art Writing at Goldsmiths (2010).

http://www.tamarinnorwood.co.uk/