Our first live performance of Walking in the Way 1 Hour Selected site, Church Lane.
A side lane outside Victoria Shopping Centre is our choice for this one hour piece. We are drawn by the architecture, including the curious tiny, angular pub on the corner, the loading bay to the shopping mall, the barbers, second hand shop, bookies, pubs and the tobacco pipe shop.
In the charity shop we buy men’s shoes and change in their cubicle. They agree to hold our belongings for the duration. We emerge separately and continue at our own pace adjusting to the street, as men. A packet of chalk sticks resembles cigarettes and is offered to a passerby to draw around our feet and leave a trace of our imprint.
A police car crawls on our heels and challenges us to hold ground as we continue to occupy the central position of the lane.
The newspaper tucked under the arm is in respectful remembrance of Bill Cummins We criss-cross Church Lane and together we lay a bet on an obscure 1,30 race somewhere in South Africa the racing news says. No one gives us a second glance unlike yesterday when we visited the bookies as women. We study the form and wait and win on a 30:1 chance.
Outside the tobacco pipe shop two men are peering in the window and are in conversation .We join them and ask to draw around their feet. In answer to their question,” What are you doing” s/he replies "we are being men ) . They shake our hands and we feel accepted into the brotherhood.
"It was fascinating to see how such a raw and unpredictable audience, (people in the street), would react to the artists. In the gallery the previous night, I had noticed how the crowd of viewers would open respectfully around the performer whenever their activity moved them beyond the designated space. On a hectic Saturday afternoon in the centre of the city, few shoppers even noticed that anything out-of-the-ordinary was occurring. Entitled 'Walking in the Way', the invisibility of the piece was its greatest triumph." Sara Baume for VAI 2009.