Reflecting on the 2021 festival themes of what is public and what is private and how these societal constructs intersect, crossover and disrupt each other. This discussion looks at a similar dichotomy between art and life; how artists often present work that delves into the uncomfortable line between what is art and what is life.

Performance artists have a long history of blurring the lines between public and private spaces, as well as challenging what is conceived of as ‘art’ and often inviting audiences to engage with perverse, mundane and private acts of day to day life. During the 2021 festival artists; Jazmine Rose Phillips, Kalisolaite ‘Uhila and B Ajay Sharma (representative from ‘in_process’ collective) who all presented works that do just that. The panel was facilitated by Martin Patrick, who is an art critic, historian and writer and whose recent book ‘Across the Art/Life Divide: Performance, Subjectivity, and Social Practice in Contemporary Art’ speaks to some of these exact enquiries and relevant performance art histories.

Martin Patrick, an art critic, historian, and writer, is an Associate Professor of Art at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. A regular contributor to and reviewer for many international publications, his book Across the Art/Life Divide: Performance, Subjectivity, and Social Practice in Contemporary Art was published in 2018 by Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press. He contributed the chapter “Exploring Posthuman Masquerade and Becoming” to Animism in Art and Performance (C. Braddock, ed., Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017). He has presented his research as a keynote speaker, chair, and panelist at public galleries and museums, conferences and symposia. He is a member of the advisory boards for several arts organizations and publications. He is currently compiling an anthology of his selected art criticism.

Learn more about Martin’s work here: http://www.martinpatrick.net/