Art Work/Work Art was part of Steder/Places, an international programme of site-specific artworks staged throughout the town of Lillehammer, Norway in August 2003. Richard also gave the opening keynote performance lecture address: The Architecture of Belief at the Steder/Places conference.

Art Work/Work Art developed Richard’s concerns about the relationship between performance and the everyday, between the theatrical gesture and ordinary movement. For this piece he became interested in the round coffee table as a metaphor for internationalism. He took on the role of a waiter at the Park Canteen in Lillehammer where the action of waiting tables became the medium and mode of perfomative action.

Layzell kept a daily journal of his experiences, which were relayed back to this website [link]. These diary entries were also translated into Norwegian and appeared in the newspaper Gudbrandsølen Dagningen.

The site, a corridor, has become a main entry point to the new North Courtyard building, and bridges a gap of 75 years in its history, from 1928 to 2003. Formerly exterior walls have now become interior ones and the Lower Ground Floor’s inner workings have been exposed.

Instead of concealing these underground details by constructing a new corridor within the old, Richard collaborated with the School, the architect and the building contractors to create a sensory journey. Richard combined historical archival research and interviews with current building users to create an environment that reflects both the School’s history and usage. This includes the design of flooring, ceiling, lighting and the relocation of an original oak door to the precise entry point that divides the old from the new. The work spanned about 12 months. In this time Richard’s ‘conversation’ moved from architect and builders to staff, students and visitors. This is an artwork that is intentionally both visible and invisible at the same time, where performative interaction is as much a part of the strategy as the material installation in the corridor. [link]

IS culminated in a series of high profile city centre events including film screenings at Arnolfini and Watershed and an exhibition at Centrespace. The project profiled the cultural identity and diversity of the city’s communities.

IS employed arts practice as a dialogic tool between individuals and communities. It tested the possibility for a new vocabulary of community-based arts in which the social aims of neighbourhood renewal – tackling social exclusion, increasing achievement in education, reducing inequalities in health, promoting access – were bound by the unique urban landscapes of the city itself.

The Manifestation is a direct development of the Talking to Tania dialogues [link] that have been published on this website. The installation draws together themes and interventions which have evolved through the four years of this project: The Perfect Image; White on White; The Radiant Curve; The Stumbling Block; The Table as Metaphorical Space; International Cleaning; The Dialogue; Standing Very Still and Falling Phoebe.

The nature of the ongoing dialogue with Tania Koswycz has shifted from commentary to collaboration, so Tania now receives equal billing and her voice becomes potentially the dominant one through her aesthetic of absence. The Manifestation found form through an initial work-in-progress Towards the Perfect Image at Stroud Valley’s Artspace in October 2007. This work was an essentially photographic exploration, which successfully incorporated the dialogue in handwritten text on 38 postcards. Falling Phoebe and The Stumbling Block are currently in production as video and sculptural manifestations.

It is likely that as The Manifestation tours throughout 2008 it will combine a different set of elements for each showing.

Key Notes is an ongoing performance work that explores, critiques and satirises the place, status and context of public speaking: from the troops rousing corporate address to the jovial and benign tones of the father of the bride, to the behavioural peculiarities of the academic lecturer. Already performed as a work-in-progress in Oxford, Stroud, London and Colchester, it was premiered at the National Review of Live Art in Glasgow in February 2008.