Walking in the Way is a collaborative series of performances by established visual artists Pauline Cummins and Frances Mezzetti. Since 2008 they have explored control of public space, stereotyping, masculinities, movement and presence.
The two women artists have performed Walking in the Way in Belfast, Dublin, and Edinburgh. They have also performed in London, LondonDerry, Istanbul, and Dublin, as part of the Labour Touring Show, and in Madrid, Seville, and Malaga supported by Bbeyond and Culture Ireland.
Walking in the Way book cover
Walking in the Way – Performing Masculinity
by Pauline Cummins & Frances Mezzetti
Editor: Art historian, Catherine Marshall,
Publisher: WAAG Women Artists Action Group.
Contributors: Essays by Catherine Marshall, Dr. Áine Phillips, Ed., Performance Art in Ireland: A History, Dr. Kate Antosik-Parsons and Nieves Correa, curator and performance artist.
Walking in the Way: Performing Masculinity is a 98 page publication with 44 high quality images which documents the project begun in 2008 around the gendered occupancy of spaces in cities in which the artists have performed in Ireland, UK, Turkey and Spain.
Walking in the Way is a collaborative performance series by established artists Frances Mezzetti and Pauline Cummins. They explore control of space, stereotyping, masculinities, movement and presence. Walking in the Way was first performed in Dublin in 2009 and the artists continue to probe the possibilities to date.
As feminist artists who challenge essentialist fixed identities, these Irish artists seek to make visible how gender intersects with society. They pay particular attention to how small acts and movements can be re-presented and performed in and through their “gendered” bodies.
The Walking in the Way performances take place in cities where the two female artists take on the mannerism, gestures and physicality of male presence in the public arena. The focus of each piece develops from the general to the particular and each one is unique to that city. The development of the work is informed by key figures from the chosen community, and an important part of the research process is informed by understandings and connections that are forged with local individuals in each of the selected cities.
The performances are observational, transient works, with a unique meaning and resolution.
10 performances have taken place in 9 different cities, Dublin, Belfast, London Edinburgh, Derry/Londonderry, Istanbul, Madrid, Seville, and Malaga.
The artists have recently released a publication on the work (which can be purchased in the paragraph above), and are int he middle of a touring retrospective for the show. The next segment in this tour will be at The Lab Gallery in Foley Street in Dublin called Walking in the Way/ A World of Appearances. The opening is on February 1st 6 – 8, launched by performance artist Amanda Coogan and runs until the 16th of March. More information can be found here.