Ann-Marie LeQuesne

project funding 2007

My work is social and collaborative. Working with members of the public, I stage events that involve elements of tableau vivant, ritualised behaviour and re-enactment. I documents these events with photographs and/or video. Projects are often site specific and ongoing. Recently I have begun to consider ways to include sound and music in the events.

During 2008 I will work with Parabola to stage At Table, a re-enactment of a medieval painting on the effects of drinking wine. Participants will be asked to form a tableau vivant of the painting and will be accompanied by live music and pre-recorded sound tracks as they enter the set of the painting. I am working with a singer and a percussionist in Paris, Muriel Louveau and Shyamal Maitra. I applied to the J.G.T. for funding to support the cost of travelling to and working in Paris.

Other recent work includes TEN, The 10th Annual Group Photograph, held in November, 2007, in the Starr Auditorium at Tate Modern. Every year since 1997 I have taken a group photograph in a different and dramatic location. The group varies but has also acquired loyal following so what began as a “fake” group has become a genuine one. For more information on this ongoing project go to theannualgroupphotograph.com.

In 2006 I staged a re-enactment of a small photograph supposedly taken at the Execution of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico in 1867. This took place on the steps of the Museum of Art in Philadelphia. (In the Museum collection there is a small painting done after the photograph.)