We do not speak but confine ourselves briefly to the surface (a dramaturgy of interiority)

"Colour differs from substance. Is colour always lyric? We are not sure. It seems to consist of the detritus from natural history stuck into sentiment. For example, it is said that among humans, women are colourful. Nothing more needs to be said on this theme." Lisa Robertson, How to Colour, 2003

Artists: Chantal Akerman, Sara Kathryn Arledge, Carys Briggs, Christina Chalmers, Susanna Davies-Crook, Lauren Godfrey, Natalie Häusler, Tamara Henderson, Quinn Latimer & Paolo Thoraten-Nagel, Laida Lerxtundi, Hanne Lippard, Laura Morrison, Rose O'Gallivan, Olga Pedan, Lisa Robertson, Katie Schwab and Nina Wakeford.

Titled after a quote from J.W. Goethe’s Theory of Colours, this is an evening programme exploring interiority as a collective experience and the affective potential of the surface. A live event that builds on the format of a film screening to create an arrangement situated between the theatre and the exhibition through an interlacing of films, objects, movement, singing and speaking. Reflecting back on the work of Betty Woodman, this evening aims to think through feminised expectations and the possibility of an event as a decorative object.

This conglomeration of disparate voices seeks to bring into focus modes of address and subject matters such as the decorative, the sentimental, the silly, the private, the irrational, the trivial or the talkative and unfold the ways in which vulnerability, intimacy, and unguarded emotion can act as biopolitical gestures that recuperate their historically diminished cultural value. A trans-generational dialogue creating possibilities for relating at a distance.

This event has been curated by ICA Student Forum members Letitia Calin and Ashlee Conery.