Installation and Performance, 2001

Proposal for Whitechapel Gallery's Centenary Exhibition

Performers will re-perform the meeting where it was decided to build the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1901. By researching the material that is available from archives from the time, I will reconstruct how the meeting took place, and then write a loose script.

To host the meeting I will construct an installation that will be like a film set but with the possibility of an audience to view the meeting. The meeting can be performed one or more times, and the minutes, or re-minutes, will then be available to the audience after the performance.

The idea is to use performers who have a similar background to those who participated in the decision making process to open Whitechapel to see what kind of discussion will come out of the meeting in the present days. It will, in other words, be a dynamic process more than a planned one. They will 'perform' the meeting with the same agenda as in 1901.

I will utilize my experience from the hundreds of meetings I have taken part in when working in marketing planning: Preparation - discussion - decisions - minutes - and implementation.