Liz Burns article in Visual Artist Ireland May /June 2012 Labour Intensive.
Extract:
“The idea of gender as a construct was clearly evident in Frances Mezzetti and Pauline Cummins’ collaborative performance Walking in the Way which they have performed together since 2009 and involves both artists taking on ’the personas, mannerisms, gestures and physicality of male presence in the public arena’. These performances happen before an unwitting audience in public spaces and streets.
For ’Labour’ Cummins performed in Istanbul the previous day and Mezzetti walked the local streets around the Lab, venturing into the gallery at times throughout the day. Taking on various personas – council worker, street sweeper,and a slightly annoying member of ‘Joe Public’ one could have missed Mezzetti’s performance in the blink of an eye, which was clearly the intention. Throughout the day, photo documentation of both artists’ performances was relayed on a video monitor upstairs, depicting their quiet subversion of male presence in public spaces.”
Liz Burns curates the visual arts programme for Fire Station Artists Studios, Dublin.
From the Belfast Street Performance Sara Baume of Visual Artist Ireland, wrote of the first performance:
“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.”
Visual Artists Newsheet, Issue 3 2009, May/June
Michelle Browne Performance Art in Ireland a History, Ed. Áine Phillips extract:
In 2009 Cummins and Mezzetti .. “began a series of investigations into the performance of gender in public space through a project called Walking in the Way. The collaboration draws out their individual interests in the social, political and historical aspects of site and how the site as source can expose the characteristics of social relations in a particular location. Walking in the Way has been performed in Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, London, Derry, Madrid, (Seville, Malaga) and Istanbul. In each site the artists carry out meticulous research into the area to identify specific actions and locations from which to work. They dress as men in order to infiltrate the world of men. They were not hiding and were therefore not in disguise, but instead they embodied men, donning men’s clothes, applying facial hair, exploring their own relationship to maleness. This allowed them to investigate their gendered position in public space. From single acts like leaning on a bin in the street, standing around and loitering in the city, the artists were finding actions, behaviours, and gestures that allowed them to understand positions which they, as women, were unable to access. This sense of possession, of ownership of a domain by virtue of one’s sex is clearly visible as they blend into their surroundings. No commsent is passed. There are no side glances. Even when actions take on a more surreal character, there is still a sense of belonging, of permission to carry out strange activities and rituals like marking out boundaries with chalk (Dublin) Carrying large oversized objects (Seville), doing traditional Irish dancing in the middle of the street (Madrid) . Much has been written about the position of women in the city from the nineteenth century onwards and what is striking in this work – made in contemporary society- is that belonging and possession of the public space is still particularly male.”
Mezzetti and Cummins.. ’ blend into the fabric of the city, to investigate and highlight the social differences that still exist in how we occupy or inhabit the city.’
Michelle Browne, Performance Art in Ireland the New Millennium pp. 249-250 Performance Art in Ireland a History, Ed. Áine Phillips.
Helena Walsh Curator Labour London. 2012
Writing in, Aine Phillips Helena Walsh extract:
“Frances Mezzetti and Pauline Cummins were specifically commissioned to perform their work, Walking in the Way. After undertaking research in the local community based on observing the ways men spend their time, the artists transformed themselves into convincing male personas and performed in the local community. In London, Mezzetti and Cummins were struck by the overwhelming impact the 2012 Olympics had on the local community, heightened by the close proximity of the Olympic Stadium to ]performance s p a c e[. Over the ‘working day’ Mezzetti took the role of director and instructed Cummins to mark Olympic Circles at various sites, such as outside Hackney Town Hall, and in a snow-covered park. Mezzetti and Cummins were trailed by a team of photographers who covertly recorded their activities. At intervals during the day these images were projected in the space where the other nine artists were performing. In the final hours Mezzetti and Cummins came to the performance site, remaining in their guises and interacted with the other performers