Member Profile
Name
Rachel Gomme (aka RachelGomme)
Non-members will only see details that members have made publicly available.
Members login using the form at the top of this page to see more on the site. If you're not a member yet join NWN Now ›
About me
Region:
London
Artforms
Performance, Live Art, Experimental Dance/Movement, Installation, Video Art, Time-based, Interdisciplinary, Site Specific.
Occupation
Practising Artist/Practitioner, Arts Advisor.
Statement
I work in performance and installation, focusing on time and process as experienced in the body of both performer and viewer. I am interested in the immediate moment of performance, and to what extent it is possible to create a shared space of experience between performer and viewer.
My work has encompassed durational performance, one-to-one, video, sound installation and sculptural installation. I often work site-specifically, but have also made work for the stage. I look at the detail of process in the body, how the embodied experience of the immediate moment is engaged with, stored and remembered. My work tends to be quiet and intimate, often focusing on spaces and phenomena conventionally perceived in terms of absence or lack: I have made a series of performance and video pieces based around the central idea of stillness as performance, and more recently have developed work looking at silence as positive presence and good that can be given or exchanged (one-to-one performance and CD project 'audience', and sound and video installation 'audience : hearing').
Part of this examination of spaces of 'absence' includes an ongoing series of pieces centred around the idea and experience of waiting. Working with the held breath as a moment of suspense and anticipation and as a space of presence, this investigation has resulted in solo and interactive performances ('Line Drawn Between the Inbreath and the Outbreath', 'Suspend'). Other projects in development relating to the held breath include short sound compositions and group performance.
Since 2006 I have also brought knitting into my performance work and created a number of durational performances involving knitting. Initially using it to materialise time spent waiting (e.g. 'A Year of Waiting'), other durational and cumulative work engages knitting as a metaphor for time and memory (site-specific performance series 'Ravel', as well as 'Ravelled Sleeve' and 'Knitting a Rothko'.
I continually return to the body and ways we store and manifest experience in our bodies, but also the body as both container and substance, examining to what extent the body is continuous with its environment and to what extent it is distinct. As a city-dweller, I reflect on my bodily engagement with the urban environment and seek ways to highlight the 'nature' (both human and non-human) that is often overlooked in this setting.
Companies
Opportunities
The Ends of audience
Deadline: 30/1/2012
11/1/2012 11:31:18
=== Call for Proposals: The Ends of Audience ===
Interdisciplinary Workshop
Queen Mary University of London
May 30-31st 2012
=== Outline ===
People in audiences act: they talk, clap, heckle, sigh, inhale, exhale, rustle, twit...
Projects
Knitted Month
By Rachel Gomme
Each day in May I unravel and reknit the same small piece of knitting. Gradually through the month the yarn crinkles and splits, making it harder to work and changing the form of the knitting. Each day I record its new form by photographing it....
Posted: 27/5/2009 10:56:06
A Year of Waiting
By Rachel Gomme
A cumulative performance that aims to collect all the time I spend waiting for public transport in a year, in a long knitted strip....
Posted: 29/5/2009 12:00:06
Undergrowth
By Rachel Gomme
A green trail through Camberwell, celebrating nature's subversion of the city...
Posted: 13/6/2008 13:56:57
Suspend
By Rachel Gomme
An archive of held breaths, gathering a precious commodity, Suspend encompasses sound recordings, installation and interactive performance as part of a long-term project examining the space between inhalation and exhalation....
Posted: 29/9/2008 19:16:23
Events
Handover
10/12/2011
Category: Performance
If I give you my hand, will you give me yours? A brief exchange of touch leaves a lasting trace. One-to-one interaction presented as part of CRUISING FOR ART at the Basement, 24 Kensington Street, Brighton Saturday 10 December 8-11 p...
Handover
09/12/2011
Category: Performance
If I give you my hand, will you give me yours? A brief exchange of touch leaves a lasting trace. One-to-one interaction presented as part of CRUISING FOR ART at Vogue Fabrics, 66 Stoke Newington Road, London N16 Friday 9 December 8-1...
Hour (for Penelope)
21/10/2011 - 22/10/2011
Category: Performance
24-hour durational performance Time passing, time returning, suspended time. Through a continual process of knitting and unravelling, this 24-hour performance examines the experience of time as line and cycle, as moment and infinity, as chronology...
Handover
15/07/2011
Category: Performance
If I give you my hand, will you give me yours? A brief exchange of touch leaves a lasting trace. One-to-one interaction presented as part of CRUISING FOR ART at Latitude Festival Literary Salon stage and around Friday 15 July 11.0...
