monstera deliciosa

The Looking Beyond Project is a performance research project by Rudi Salpietra and Eva Dahlqvist looking at the role of Gallery Assistants and their impact on the experience of the visitors. The project was facilitated in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery London where a performance took place to test the findings of several months of research conducted on site through interviews and observations to answer the following questions:

 

Can gallery assistants be regarded as authority figures within the gallery space?

 

If so, what construes them as such: body language? relationship to the space? costumes/uniforms?

The research project stems from the performers' interest in Ervin Goffmann's theories introduced in 'The Presentation of the Self' and utilises theatrical notions of proxemics, character construction, semiotics and phenomenology to advance that authority figures can be decoded as fictional characters due to their highly performative nature.