In February 2020 we selected contemporary artist Sophie Lindsey as recipient of our 2-day micro-residency. Sophie creates work that responds to specific contexts, environments and situations. She works in various mediums, including text, GIFs, performance and video, often creating interventions in public space.

Performance Socks

How do artists choose what to wear in a performance?

What’s the difference between a costume and an outfit?

Are socks the least important part of a performance?

When getting dressed in the morning you make decisions based on the activities of the day and your own personal preferences. For artists creating a performance, these decisions become greater as everything you wear can act as a signifier in your work. However, the socks you wear rarely make a meaningful contribution. Despite this I often find myself returning to the same pair of red socks, both inside and outside of performances.

The initial video Performance Socks challenges this seemingly irrelevant wardrobe choice through a performance to camera that exaggerates this minute decision through the characteristics of children’s television.

This Micro Residency gave me the opportunity to consider wider ideas surrounding performance and costume, taking inspiration from the simplified wardrobes of cartoon characters; as well as considering how note taking can make my process more visible.

Sophie's residency at the Barn

This Micro Residency gave me the time and space to begin to interrogate ideas that have been circulating in my head. Through notes and mind maps these were able to emerge causing me to interrogate conventions of performance.

I focused on the use of costume, taking inspiration from the simplified wardrobes of cartoon characters. By focusing on my sock choice, as perhaps the least important part of a performance, I challenged my preference for the same pair of red socks.

The initial video Performance Socks exaggerates this minute decision in a performance to camera that adopts characteristics of children’s television. I will continue to develop this idea, redrafting and reshooting different elements over the coming months.

I will also continue to experiment with different forms note taking and different methods of making this visible in my practice.