Tall Tales

About

Ruth Barker, Nicky Bird, Beth Collar, Alison Erika Forde, Sarah Forrest, Rachel Goodyear, Oona Grimes, Lila De Magalhaes, Laure Prouvost, and Ma Qiusha.

Stories have been shared for centuries and across every culture as a means of entertainment, cultural preservation and education. The artists in Tall Tales use storytelling techniques to toy with our perception of myth, reality, the public and private, ideas on difference, as well as question our assumptions. Their works reveal uncanny scenarios, sometimes pointing to personal stories but more broadly, issues pertinent to society at large, and what we might call ‘the human experience’.

Tall Tales will feature new works and performance commissions by Ruth Barker and Beth Collar, developed following Tall Tales residencies in London and Glasgow in 2014.

In London Ruth Barker will present Glass, Blinded To The Room, a new video and installation work for Anna Freud’s desk, and a new performance commission, The Foot Exerts a Pressure On The Surface Of The Glass, to be staged in the Freud family dining room. Barker’s new performance will be a very contemporary take on an ancient oral tradition. Whilst speculating on the nature of memory, improvising questions and asking the audience to silently revisit their dreams, Barker will ask museum staff to select and insert objects from the Freud collection and archive into her performance, also encouraging audiences to offer spoken responses to her dreamlike calls.