
Sean Borodale: Asylum Oedipus
Join us for a work in progress performance by Sean Borodale,  Bluecoat’s Artist/Writer in Residence 2016/2017.
Over the last year, Bluecoat’s resident artist and writer Sean Borodale has mapped the city through location-based recordings of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Residents from Liverpool’s many neighbourhoods have been invited to read an extract, with their accumulative responses shaping a new version of the text. While this new work, Ulysses Rescue, continues to develop, mid-way through his residency, Borodale shares another work in progress which also derives from the act of location based documentary poems, or what the artist terms his ‘Lyrigraphic’ process.
On Fri 7 Apr, 7.30pm, Asylum Oedipus a text written deep underground in the Mendip Hills will be performed for the first time as a spoken word piece at Bluecoat. In this unique, experimental event, vocalists Saphena Aziz and Steve Boyland will perform as readers with Sean Borodale.
The performances will be set against a new large-scale typographic print work (pictured) installed in Bluecoat’s Performance Space. This temporary installation is comprised of 72 individual screen-prints – made using Borodale’s ‘Lyrigraphic process’ – joined together to form one composition. As a composite performance installation Asylum Oedipus transfers the act of writing in darkness into the act of reading in a darkened space against a strata of fragmented text.
The readings will conclude with an opportunity for the audience to view Borodale’s prints more closely. Visitors will also be able to view Borodale’s print works on Sat 8 & Sun 9 Apr.
Sean Borodale works as an artist and writer. He has held residencies and fellowships at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam; the Miro Foundation in Spain; Trinity College Cambridge and the Slade School in London. He has work in collections including British Library’s Modern British Collections and the Jerwood Archive at the Wordsworth Trust. His poetry has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot and Costa book awards. He was selected as a Next Generation Poet in 2014. His long topographical text Notes for an Atlas was performed over 8 nights at Southbank Centre in London, directed by Mark Rylance.
Saphena Aziz is a renowned Liverpool based Singing teacher, scriptwriter, reader and Director of Sense of Sound.
Steve Boyland is an improvising vocalist, performance artist and voice teacher of international stature.
Sean Borodale’s residency is supported by Arts Council England; the Slade, University College London & Trinity College Cambridge.