British artist performs disability art

UK artist, audience communicate without speaking

By Park Jin-hai

Jo Bannon, 36, a British artist born with albinism, visited Seoul for a five-day performance called “Exposure,” which runs until Jan. 13.

In her performance, which belongs to a lesser-known genre called “disability art,” audience members are guided into complete darkness. In the ten-minute, one-on-one performance, the audience listens to the artist's recorded voice talking about her life with the genetic disorder and her identity.

It is not until the very end, the audience gets to see the artist's face and the artist and audience share a moment to look at each other.

“So much happens in that moment when we look at each other. We don't speak, but some kind of conversation happens,” said Bannon, who met 20 Korean audience members in her opening performance, held at Ieum Korea Disability Arts & Culture Center in Seoul, Wednesday.

Bannon calls it a “little experiment” and says it is really about being together. “I think having all of this visual information can be so distracting in a way, to see who that person is. The recording really talks a lot about how we might be able to see each other without seeing,” she said. “Even though I've done this thousands of times now, it feels like a surprise to see a face suddenly.”

Bannon as a person with albinism being looked at by others.

“I'm doing my shopping in the market and somebody comes to me and will say 'you have white hair. Let me look at your eyes. Every week once, probably. It was almost like a little act of violence when someone tries to look at you and you don't want to be seen,” she said. “So I made this work, I was interested in setting up a space I control. So I control all of them. You only see me when I only want you to see me.”

One member of the audience, who first gets frightened of the idea of one-on-one interaction, learns that it can be a quiet soft conversation. She says the piece is very gentle and welcoming.

“It's always exciting when you see someone who begins very nervous then kind of feels comfortable. There is this idea that might be confrontational, but actually it's much more hypnotic and gentle,” she said. “What I'm trying to say is that I would prefer this kind of way of looking at each other in the world. Maybe that's the proposition in the work that we should look each other more softly.”

As a teenager, living in a small industrial town in the U.K, she was a shy person and thought that boys would never be attracted to her, because she was different from the stereotypical beauty of a blond girl at school. As her eyes are weak in sunlight due to the lack of melanin pigments, the fear of inevitably losing her eyesight due to overexposure has also haunted her for a long time.

“I think the work talks about how we are seen and I'm talking from the perspective of someone with albinism which is very distinct way of looking. But I think we all have this relationship with how we are looked at and how we are seen, also as a woman aside from having albinism,” she added.

“Sometimes I can really see the audience really engaging. Yes, they're thinking about me, my story and what I'm telling them. But I can tell they are also applying that to themselves. In some way, it gives you this understanding that we are all in a way same though.”

She performed “Exposure,” the first autobiographical piece, in 2010. Since then she has been traveling around the world and performing it in different languages and different cultures.

Counting, Kelly Gallagher, Northern Ireland Paralympics skier with oculocutaneous albinism, who skies almost blind, listening to the voice of a guide skier in front of her, Bannon says she regards herself as “slow activist.”

Mentioning the effect of door-to-door campaign, giving more chances to change people's mind, compared to billboard campaign, Bannon says she believes her one-on-one performance do something in the world.

“I do as many shows of this as I can but it's still a small number. I've come to Korea and only a hundred people will see the work. While it's very slow way to change the world, one at a time, but I think it's long lasting. I think these exchanges in this performance do something. So yes, I'm a very slow activist.”