Visit to the Tate Exchange
On a recent visit to the Tate Modern in London, a friend and I followed our curiosity to visit the Tate Exchange on the fifth floor. Tate Exchange is open Tues – Fri 12:00-18:00 and is hosted by the Inclusive Arts Practice from the University of Brighton. We were apprehensive but a smiling lady beaconed us inside. We started by walking on a carpet from coloured circle to coloured circle until she told us to stop. My friend was the indicator which meant that the colour she stopped on decided our activity. She stopped on yellow.
We were escorted to the yellow station. At the yellow station, our host explained that we would be doing an activity inspired by Slovenian artists based on telepathy. They started these activities to stay connected after one of them moved to the US. The first task was to choose a colour and an element – orange (me) and water (C) – to focus the activity. And then the activity began.
Telepathic Communication
There were a lot of instructions. To summarise, we had to communicate with each other telepathically to create the same spontaneous design using coloured straws. The first step involved us standing up, closing our eyes and holding our arms straight out in front of us (parallel to the floor) holding the coloured straws upright (perpendicular to the floor). Then we had to telepathically channel water and love to each other while holding the coloured straws. Finally, we made a sound in harmony with each other and then dropped our sticks, with the hope that each set of straws would fall in a similar pattern. We opened our eyes to examine our creations. Sorry, but I didn’t take a picture of our masterpieces. Alas, our telepathy did not work but there were smiles and laughter all around.
Free Tea
There were at least 5 different stations and a free tea station. At the free tea station, one of the volunteers explained that the purpose of the project is to encourage participation by people who don’t typically see themselves as being part of the art world, those who feel like they are not welcomed or represented in it. Each of the cups has a story about the person who made it, someone who is uncomfortable in art spaces. What a great idea! We had a cup of tea and sat by the windows to rest our feet.
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