Missing Mystery Event

As you know I had taken part in Patricia's performance workshops which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was the first time I had done performance art and because the performance was unexpected to the audience it was great to see the reactions and how they interacted with what was happening. I have always been interested in interactive art and have done some in the past. I felt the time was right to re-visit that now and get people involved in my work. Using the art and design building itself in the performance piece seemed a great way of utilising the space and taking advantage of what we already have. Therefore I decided to hold an event that utilised the whole of the building for a missing mystery event.

As my work deals primarily with MWWS I chosen Vivienne to be 'my victim' for the event as she fits the criteria. I made up missing posters, each with a different clue that would eventually lead to her whereabouts. I put these around the building, utilising all the floors, along with picture clues of the victim walking in different directions. I invited guests to come along for a little soiree beforehand.

I found this to be a good experience as myself and the people involved enjoyed the evening and I feel art is made to be enjoyed. As my work has been quite intense and deals with important issues, I found this to be a more light hearted approach yet carrying serious undertones. Again with this event I had to do some negotiating, everything from the wine to where I could put up the posters, but you learn from these experiences and they set you up for what to expect after university. I feel that if this could be done on a bigger scale it would be a great way to raise awareness of missing people and could even be used to raise money for charities for missing people. For example missingpeople.org, who look for missing people as well as holding a lot of information on the statistics involved.