As part of the XTRAX Artist Spotlight with FiraTàrrega this November we spoke to Jocelyn Spencer-Mills, Producer at Kaleider
Kaleider is an international production studio led by artist Seth Honnor. Playing on the edge of installation, live performance and digital, Kaleider makes artworks for audiences all over the world and runs innovation programmes in art and creative technology for others to develop and produce work too.
Kaleider’s artworks are interruptive gifts disarming public spaces with playful participatory work, inspired by the biggest challenges of our time. Kaleider does not offer the answers, but instead illuminates the questions, and often, at its heart, asks… What Can We Do Together That We Cannot Do Apart?
Recent projects include their PIG tour diary, and From The Light Of The Fire, Our Dancing Shadows, watch their videos below.
Have a read of a recent article by British performance critic Lyn Gardner
“…Led by Seth Honnor, Kaleider has always been small, agile, networked and responsive. It creates projects that do not fit into any art-form box, which are almost always participatory and are startling in the way they make us engage with the world and interrogate our own responses to it.
In The Money, which played in Hull’s Guildhall last year, the participants have to decide under time pressure how to spend a pot of money. Unless there is unanimous agreement the pot rolls over to the next night and next group of people. The result is fascinating– full of reflection, angst and high drama–as the piece becomes an active demonstration of negotiated power, and the processes of decision making and working together.
Another on-going project, Pig, previously seen at Hull’s Freedom Festival, where it created quite a stir, is a provocation in outdoor public space and takes the form of a giant plastic hog with money visible inside. An LED message tells us it is a community fund. The public are invited to contribute to the fund and/or open and spend or distribute the money as they see fit. Like The Money, it puts its faith in the individual and community to come to a decision, to self-organise and think about who is part of the community, who isn’t, and who does and doesn’t police them.
One of the things that defines these projects is that they test the assumptions we make about human behaviours, and the way the world works. They challenge the existing structures and make us look at things a little differently. They always implicate the audience while holding them in a place of safety. Honnor talks about the work being “sticky”, it adheres to the audience in different ways. Even those who shrugged and walked away from Pig may have found themselves talking about it that evening over the washing up. It sets up an itch.”
Read the full article here, and watch the video below to find out more about Pig and A Portrait Without Borders, as well as exploring their profile our XTRAX International Directory.
Featured Image: Pig on the island of Terschelling for Oerol festival ©Seth Honnor
