Hazel Dowling
Anarchy In The Ether
2011

Encompassing performance, film and installation Hazel Dowling’s practice addresses various forms of social ritual and collective experience. With re-enactment as a starting point, Dowling seeks to propose an alternate code or set of systems within social behaviour by delineating historical narratives through choreographed scenarios,formulated within both public and private spheres. 

Dowling’s performances acknowledge audience/performer relations, drawing on various trajectories of the avant-garde theatre traditions, such as the Russian constructivists stage sets and Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet. By doing so Dowling reconsiders their aims and ‘unrealised’ ambitions in a contemporary context.

jotta invites Hazel Dowling to realise a new performative piece, Anarchy In The Ether, that subtly disrupts and interacts with the audience at Artsmart's Time Out Readers event. Anarchy In The Ether will be performed  in collaboration with members of SALT, a student-led publication set up to promote discussion and provide an alternative way to display and disseminate information. SALT is a space for experimentation and questioning, the group host regular meetings and discussions, such as 'Tea, Scones and SALT', a weekly meeting place for people to use as an open platform for their practice and initiatives.

Hazel Dowling and collaborator Hannah Clayden draw inspiration from ‘Voices In The Air', an article written for the The Independent in 1922. Anarchy In The Ether challenges modes of communication, censorship and sustained dialogue in both public and private spaces.