the arrival_cecilia white 2014

Performed on 29 May 2014 at Verge Gallery, City Road, Sydney. Part of ‘Beyond a Thousand Words’, a Head On Associated Event.

writings on the wall_cecilia white

Cecilia White’s site specific performance don’t(.) give up your day job (i don’t know, i don’t know) interrogates the space between the lives we lead and the lives we once dreamt of leading – and perhaps still do. Asking what holds us back from our otherness, the artist draws inspiration from the original purpose of the building the gallery is housed in – to become a bank.

customer number_cecilia white 2014

In manifesting that purpose she reflects on the pressures of everyday living and tension of private dreams through work, song, text and silence: recurrent actions in the artist’s work. She asks: If a bank can become a gallery…what can we imagine for ourselves?

don’t (.) give up your day job i don’t know i don’t know_cecilia white_ sydney 2014

At the desk – shredder, loud hailer, security screen and the cards of (un)knowing.

the sofa of dreams_cecilia white 2014

The audience are also given customer numbers so they might share their own accounts of life for the artist to respond to at the sofa of dreams.

Our anxieties, sense of wonder and self are called to account in this durational performance – you can bank on it!

don’t give up your day job_cecilia white_ sydney 2014

Performance, Text & Installation: Cecilia White
Sound: courtesy of Nick Tsiavos, Contrabass. the floor of heaven, from his album one hundred months, third of east. An indie production @ run stop sound 2012, Melbourne. Available in stores on the Australian East Coast.
Performance Images: Maria Christou
Studio Image: Cecilia White
This event supported by Verge Gallery & The University of Sydney Union.