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FRENCHMOTTERSHEAD / Image: FrenchMottershead, pictured at EASTinternational 2007 / Photographer: Barbara Laws

Image: FrenchMottershead, pictured at EASTinternational 2007
Photographer: Barbara Laws
FRENCHMOTTERSHEAD

Performative events|Site-specific|Visual art installation

SIZE OF COMPANY
2 on the road

SCALE OF VENUE
Small to large

PERMANENT STAFF
Artists
Rebecca French
Andrew Mottershead

ARTISTIC POLICY
FrenchMottershead creates art that explores ideas of identity, social ritual, and the everyday public and private realms in which they are played out. Through participatory works, they subvert sites and engage people complicitly in the creative act.

REVIEW EXTRACTS
For once it is art that actually achieves the popular ideal of raising your awareness of everyday life.
Mark Wilsher, Art Monthly (Club Class)
A celebration of something we frequently overlook: the surprising, 'special' element that nestles within our everyday existence.
Mary Brennan
Through the transformation of ignored routines into self-conscious performance, locals become sensitised to their daily surroundings.
Dominic Johnson, Frieze (Shops)

CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
Shops
FrenchMottershead visit cities in Brazil, China, UK and Europe for an ongoing photographic project uncovering communities formed by local retailers: includes residencies, public artworks, performances, exhibitions and a publication. Multi-lingual.
Variable duration
2 on road plus local writer, photographer and translator
The Post Echo
Working with local people on city centre streets, the artists create, publish and circulate a free newspaper: a photographic journal featuring the public performing situations reported in local daily newspaper. Multi-lingual.
2 weeks
2 on road plus local support and translator
Borrow Me
Offering regular Library users a collection of one-on-one performances inspired by library activities, delivered by local performers, and lending a human twist to the everyday life of a library hall. Multi-lingual.
Variable duration
2 on road plus 5-15 local performers, translator
Club Class
A performance experience with full participation, where experts in bad behaviour, clothing, surveillance and body language, lead the audience to create microperformances exploring the unwritten rules governing social conduct. English only.
4 hours
6 on road plus local support
People Series
An interactive microperformance game for art festivals, galleries and social events, that distributes performance instructions amongst the audience, whose actions then combine to create an experimental social milieu. Multi-lingual.
Variable duration
2 on road plus local translator

FUTURE PRODUCTIONS
Available for site-specific commissions and residencies.

WRAP-AROUND
Illustrated talks/lectures, bespoke workshops and one-on-ones can be offered as part of, or independent from, the creation of an artwork. English only.

RECENT INTERNATIONAL WORK
2008 Romania: Shops
2008 China: Shops
2008 Brazil: Shops, The People Series
2007 China: Shops, The Post Echo
2007 Ireland: Shops
2005 Finland: Shops

TOURING AVAILABILITY
Details on request