by Layla Tully
Missing connection with people, finding myself entrenched in the domestic sphere and at war with new communication technology in the first lockdown, I decided to set myself a challenge to develop my practice and keep meaningful discourse open between my far and close contacts. In the first lockdown I took part in a 21 day abundance meditation challenge through whats app.
This time I set myself a 30 day performance challenge.
Layla’s Lockdown
- Perform for 1 minute every day
- Film it
- Share it with one new person or whats app group per day working chronologically backwards.
Forcing myself to be seen and vulnerable to anyone who had contacted me on whats app was painful at times, I did allow myself only one exception – my daughters nursery group. I didn’t feel it was fair to expose her to the judgements I was bringing on myself. This practice has indeed been challenging but it has also been cathartic. It has brought me new perspectives and feelings of closeness to contacts that I had not anticipated. The responses have been anything from humorous to moving to verging on offensive. I started this challenge for purely selfish reasons of the need to make and do and connect but the most wonderful outcome has been that others who have chosen to follow my journey, have found solace, affirmation and connection too.
The full array of 26 short performances are available to view on my YouTube Playlist.
Here are a few of my favourite videos from the challenge:
Day 7: Tape
Day 8: Boxing
Day 10: Mop
The full array of 26 short performances are available to view on Layla’s YouTube Playlist.
You will also be able to engage with Layla’s work at her workshop at the CHASE Feminist Network Sharing Feminist Research and Practice event happening online 26th & 27th February 2021, the call for sessions is still open, please follow our twitter feed @chasefeminist for details on registration in the coming weeks.
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This blog is part of our Feminist Everyday Lockdown Blog Series. Lockdown is a feminist issue, and sharing stories is a feminist practice. We are calling for further contributions to the CHASE Feminist Network blog on everyday feminism and lockdown. This includes creative, political, and personal reflections! In light of the current political situation and protests against the physical and structural violence of racism we particularly welcome blogs from BAME individuals. Full details here
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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