Acclaimed artist and theatre maker Jane Packman and her company return to mac this Spring with their innovative part performance, part installation piece The Woods.
For the duration of this show, mac’s gallery will be once again transformed, this time into a surreal woodland, richly textured to create a unique sensory experience for the viewer. Visitors will feel leaves crunch under foot and hear the rustle of trees in the breeze, as they are invited to enter The Woods. They will discover a very human interpretation of a forest, and stumble upon domestic traces of sofas and kitchens.
Woods inhabit a particular space in our cultural imagination, as a site of journeys and fairy tales, of renewal and transformation, where things are lost and found again. They are both a space of refuge and danger, of nature and human intervention. The Woods will channel these multiple meanings through the gallery.
Throughout the exhibition, performances of a newly devised piece of theatre will be held in the space. The narrative of this work takes its influence from an autumn spent under the trees, nature writing and personal stories of letting go. Based around the concept of a grief cycle, the show incorporates director Jane Packman’s unique approach to audience engagement and storytelling to create an immersive and moving experience.
The MAC and Jane Packman Company have a long standing relationship, and the newly re-opened arts centre has played a pivotal role in the development of this piece. Continuing mac’s holistic approach to the presentation of art, the work will be accompanied by a series of workshops which will give members of the public the opportunity to create their own art inspired by The Woods.
Contemplating the forces which have shaped this latest creative endeavour Packman remarked; “The show is about losing something and letting it go – about the death of something and how to live with it not being there anymore. It may sound kind of gloomy, but there’s beauty as well as sadness in this, and I hope the performance can touch on aspects of both. Remember the Golden syrup tin with the dead lion and bees “out of the strong came forth sweetness” – you get the picture?”
Admission Details and Times
Installation:
Open: Tuesday until Thursday, 10.30am – 5pm; Friday, 10.30am – 7pm
Saturday and Sunday, 10.30am – 2pm. Closed Monday, except Bank Holidays
Performances:
Wed 16 Feb, 6.30 & 8.30pm; Thu 17 Feb, 6.30 & 8.30pm; Fri 18 Feb, 8.30pm; Sat 19 Feb, 3.00, 6.30 & 8.30pm; Sun 20 Feb, 3.00 & 6.30pm
Wed 23 Feb, 6.30 & 8.30pm; Thu 24 Feb, 6.30 & 8.30pm; Fri 25 Feb, 8.30pm; Sat 26 Feb, 3.00, 6.30 & 8.30pm; Sun 27 Feb, 3.00pm
The MAC, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH
www.macarts.co.uk