The first collaboration between Arnell and MPA materialized after both were arrested by the NYPD for taking part in an Occupy Wall Street protest in October 2011. Their collaboration was set up before this event, but their shared involuntary entanglement with the body of the police state prior to the action, became an unavoidable element that permeated their interactions. OWS was happening in the streets while art was being deployed in galleries and on rooftops. Arnell and MPA brought themselves into the gallery space with the recent experience imprinted in their emotions and bodies. They didn’t bring the protest and brutality into the gallery. Protest and brutality had taken them first.
”I think it might require a certain wilfulness just to be confident enough that falling off can still mean getting somewhere, even when falling off is not a matter of will.”
—Sara Ahmed, "Interview with Judith Butler", Sexualities, 2016, Vol. 19(4), 486
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA as part of IN THE ACT gives Performing Bodies—Matters of Presence and Present Matter (2011), curated by Imri Sandström and Hanna Wilde at Silvershed, New York City. IN THE ACT was thoroughly documented in a publication called, IN THE ACT—A SPRAWLING SPACE FOR PERFORMANCE (Published by Högkvarteret 2012).
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington
Walking to the mic, the other falling off her chair (2011). Action in collaboration with MPA. Video still. Videographer: Amy von Harrington