1 Click on Away: Artwork because the medium for Environmental Motion

Phrases by Paula Catalina Riofrío.

“Towers falling down” replayed one of many children. “Issues break on a regular basis” mentioned the opposite. “Waste, plenty of waste” mentioned the tallest one. These had been the solutions of the youngsters attending 1 Click Away by Comply with By Collective, a participative workshop and efficiency that explores the themes of reusing, lowering and recycling the wrappings and containers that come to our door virtually each week. It left me questioning, how does it really feel within the physique to have an excessive amount of, how does it really feel within the physique to have much less?

I’m at Higher Norwood Library on the second flooring. It’s a classroom with two black curtains and an uncovered carry. Comply with By Collective is on stage, however so are the viewers. We’re invited to assist construct a wall on the again and there are additionally crimson carpets for us to take a seat or lie on. Then the wall is torn down. 4 movers on the ground go used cardboard containers to one another. It is vitally coordinated, upbeat, and repetitive. What’s the final result of the repetitive motion of shopping for; the repetitive motion of storing? The musician transitions us into one other scene; with a looping machine and a laptop computer, she dilates the dancers actions, she bends time.

Get Britain shifting says one of many containers. Work arduous says one of many dancer’s t-shirts. Have Enjoyable, Make Historical past. The final dancer wore a smiley Amazon T-shirt. Our bodies are used as buildings, our bodies used as machines; chains of resourcing energy. The movers stroll with carton cubes and cuboids inbetween their legs and arms as they construct a wall between us. The youngsters whisper secretly, they play conceal and search. It appears a thriller to them how the containers appear to drift on the again.

Dancers steadiness the containers and ask the little ones to hitch. They handle to steadiness because the wind blows from the audio system into the background. It turns into like a Chaplin film or clown routine; the cardboards discover themselves again to the ground. It ends with a number of the dancers coated and masked in wrappings.

Greta Gauhe the Creative Director of Comply with By Collective made me realise how borderless the codecs of artwork are within the technique of schooling. The workshop they ran after the efficiency was completely inspiring; it constructed a bridge in between the concepts skilled throughout these 40 minutes. The children used the cardboard containers to jot down, draw and recreate a brand new area. The affect of this summary inventive work can delve profoundly into the emotional and the rational cords of ourselves, in a approach regular speech wouldn’t. I left the Library enthusiastic about all of the doable brave issues to do to reuse an deserted area.