Episode 2: Collaboration & Performance
Mark Shorter and Sach Catts in conversation at Cementa17 about their collaborative endurance performance work 'Chip Chop Chanty', the intention of the work and leaking water pipes.
Worksong, Cementa17, Mark Shorter & Sach Catts. Photography by Alex Wisser
For this episode we are on site with Mark Shorter and Sach Catts, at Cementa17. We listen into their conversation as they discuss their collaborative endurance performance work 'Chip Chop Chanty', the intention of the work and leaking water pipes.
Chip Chop Chanty invited the audience to watch and listen to the rhythms of labour, as the artist’s bodies were put to the test in a paddock, on a hill complementing, intervening and shifting the landscape.
This work was undertaken throughout the four days of the Cementa17 festival. It involved Mark digging a hole, and Sach, firstly felling a tree, then chopping it up for firewood, with both artists working from sunrise to sunset. At the completion of the festival, the hole was filled in, the wood distributed and the work finished.
In their conversation Mark and Sach, explore methods of collaboration and unpack the connections of work and labour both in practice and theory. They discuss and interrogate the concept of purpose, logistics, politics, and what it means to dig and occupy a hole.
We hope you enjoy their conversation as they grapple with the complexities of the performing body in a paddock in regional NSW.
Find out more information about Mark Shorter & Sach Catts.
