Allan's Walk Artistic Directorate

Edited transcript of an interview with Megan Beckwith, Sunday, February 27, 2005

Elizabeth Boyce: I want to focus on ways in which the work will occupy, activate or relate to the site.

In thinking about the site, I'm thinking of the gallery space, the commercial space of Allan's Walk, and the community of Bendigo as well as considering any other spaces that are created or referenced during the duration of the work. By other spaces, I mean the simulated spaces referenced or created by the projection of digital animation.

Megan Beckwith: I'm strongly aware that [Allan's Walk] is a shopfront. It's hard to separate the gallery space from the shopfront space because it is a shopfront turned into a gallery space.

I think the audience mainly views the work within that space from the outside, through the glass. I know it has been open and people do walk in, but I think the best view of everything in there is from the outside in.

Within my work, I've taken that into consideration. I've started to think about the space as the space looking back out at the audience. I've animated some eyeballs and I envisage these eyeballs to be the eyes of the space, looking back out.

[Allan's Walk] was originally a gold exchange and it would have been quite an exciting place, where people made and lost fortunes. It morphed into a shopping centre which is now almost derelict. It is going to go through another transformation soon. Apparently it is going to be re-vamped, back to its original state.

I was just thinking that the space has been there for a long time and [about] what it has seen, and also turning it around on the audience. The audience is now being looked at by the space.

I'm interested in the effect of technology on the body. [With] technology, [I can give] the space the ability to look back by giving it eyes. I suppose it's [about] going into the future whilst keeping a really strong eye on the past; that idea that you take everything that's happened along with you into the future and you make sense of the future with that.

To my mind, the presentation of performance in gallery spaces always creates an interesting problem or opportunity for the artists. In their modernist forms, I think that both theatre and gallery spaces strive for transcendence over reference. In the theatre, this no-place is produced out of total blackness and the use of light to create illusion while the gallery aspires to a uniformly lit, white blankness. In creating performance for a gallery space, the artist can choose to stage the work by transforming the space into a small theatre, beginning by changing the way light is used in the space. I know that this can be problematic in practical terms, but I also think the situation presents an opportunity to deal with the specificity of the space. How will you prepare the gallery space for the performances? How will you deal with the problems of working in a gallery?

I really enjoy working site-specifically. Somehow, in being limited to an area it opens up the possibility to explore the space and see what the possibilities are within that environment. I've put a small staircase in there on which dancers will move up and down. I have blocked off one of the windows in order to mask the dancers so they can hide behind the staircase. I'm reducing the viewing space once more and forcing the audience to stand in particular spots.

Also there's something about an intimacy in the space. It is small and the audience is up close; they're seeing dancers really close up. I really like that intimacy. It can create a really strong dialogue between the performance and the audience.

I've performed in the space before. From the inside, from the performers' point of view, it's very up close. People stand right on the windows. It's almost claustrophobic. You're looking straight at [the audience]; there isn't anywhere to hide as a performer. I think from the audience's point of view, too, it's very up close. As a dancer, one is used to being next to people who are moving quite fast and throwing themselves around but ordinary public don't necessarily get to experience that.

2

Interview with Megan Beckwith, Sunday, February 27, 2005