Thursday 15th March


Performance - “Yellow Ribbon”, by Helen Flaherty


15.00 pm -16.00 pm in the Downstairs Project Space, Mills Bakery 

 

Helen is a third-year student on the BA Fine Art programme at the University of Plymouth. 

Her workexplores the colour yellow, investigating the colours effects on the human psyche. She plays with a variety of experimentation looking at how the audience reacts to the colour through creating vulnerable performance/videos where she pushes her own psyche through sensory overload challenging herself to the maximum of how much of the colour she can take before it seriously begins to affect her psychologically. She explores philosophical questions such as “What is the relation between mind and body?”. looking at the mind body debate specifically refining that to the effects of yellow on the mind and body.

 

Helen’s performance will entail her in nude underwear stripped back into bare face, no piercings or clothes because she feels that all those elements will distract from the meaning of the performance and adds to the vulnerability element. Helen will be completely silent throughout, and the audience will be instructed beforehand or via paper instructions to wrap a huge 300-meter yellow ribbon around her entire body from her toes working up to her head. Once the ribbon is completely wrapped there will be time where the viewer can see the piece completed and be able to reflect upon it. The viewer will then be instructed to unwrap Helen. Once the performance is over Helen will undergo a question and answer time, during which, the audience can give feedback on the performance and ask any questions they may have.