Alison J Carr
My work is about power and powerlessness.
I weave together audio, texts, archival and found materials with photographs and performances to interrogate the slippery multi-faceted performance of femininity. I want to bring to light, the contradictions in physical bodily display and the divergent techniques of hiding in plain sight—being the dazzling spectacle in the spotlight. Hyper-visible and invisible, loud and voiceless.
Such spotlight moments in my work draw attention to the crafting of identity through entertainment. Revealing the layers of identity informed by social interaction and contexts. I uncover hidden mechanisms and staged moments, through a process of bringing in expert voices, building unlikely relationships with retired chorus girls, current showgirls and contrary performers, who play along with me, committing to a period of embarrassed rehearsals and the ritual humiliation of public performance.
I am interested in the labour of the performance, the vulnerability of the body, my own lack of talent but also the generation of charisma. I often step into these awkward moments, implicating myself and the viewer; dancing non-stop to the threshold of painful exhaustion; singing sincerely but imperfectly in a crowded room. I aim to capture a certain irreverence, absurdity tinged with melancholy, foolishness, pleasure—all these layers of live performance, all at the same time.
The long exposures of my photographs of theatre interiors reflect aspiration, opulence and dust. The façade and the real. The reality of construction. These resonant and atmospheric spaces are haunted with the trials of optimism and human endeavour, of putting on a show.
I am committed to problematising easy dismissals of femininity and sexual display in favour of indulging deeper enquiry and rigorously researched complexity.
I explore theatres as sites of self-actualisation and Hollywood as a site of avant-garde art. Breaching boundaries between showing-off and reflecting, between exhibitionism and our own interior worlds, I position the night as a world to be inhabited, reclaimed, and enjoyed.
Alison J Carr
Born 1978 Sheffield, lives in Sheffield
Education
2013 PhD Fine Art, Sheffield Hallam University
2009 MFA Photography & Media, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts)
2001 BA (Hons) Fine Art: Combined & Media Art, Sheffield Hallam University
Solo Exhibitions, Performances & Screenings
2023 They Danced As One, live scored screening with Rob Bentall, Cultures of Sound, Huddersfield, UK
2022 Night World, Exchange Place, Yorkshire ArtSpace Society, Sheffield, UK
2021 Bubikopf, performance, The Cellar Theatre, Sheffield; NewBridge Project, Newcastle, UK
2020 Ascending A Staircase, Darlington Hippodrome Theatre, Darlington, UK
2019 Into the Spotlight, Platform / Site Gallery, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
The Gaps in the Cannon, McCullough Center, Middlebury College, USA
2018 Felicity Means Happiness, Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, UK
Selected Group Exhibitions, Performances & Screenings
2024 Hold the Space, Brown Street Projects, Sheffield, UK
2023 Babble, Ilkon, Ilkeston, UK
Contrafibularities, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield UK
2022 Think of Me With Kindness, Gage Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2021-22 Single Figures, Prosaic Mosaic, Sheffield, UK
2021 Undertow, Group Show, Freelands Foundation, London, UK
2019 Prosaic Mosaic: A Survey of New Paintings, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
Inter-Section, Temporary Contemporary, Huddersfield, UK
Showgirls: Screening and Book Launch, Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow, UK
2018 Construction House, performance, S1 Artspace, DINA, Sheffield, UK
Showgirl Manifesto, Temporary Contemporary, Huddersfield, UK
On Show, Curator’s Show by Joanna Craddock and Dawn Woolley, Leeds Arts University, Leeds, UK
2017 Lay of the Land Performance, HOME, Manchester, UK
2014 WROUGHT One-to-One Performance Festival, The Hive, Sheffield, UK
Three Act Structure, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
London Life, L A Noble, London, UK
Library Interventions / Sharon Kivland, Leeds College of Art, Leeds, UK
You Me You Me You Me, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
Hollywood Forever, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2013 Past/Present, Kinsey Institute Gallery, Indiana, USA
2012 Showtime, with artist Kerstin Honeit, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2011 Showtime, with artist Kerstin Honeit, LoBe Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2009 Greater LA MFA (GLAMFA), California State University Long Beach, USA
MFA Conversations Part II, I-5 Gallery, Brewery Arts Complex, LA, USA
Why Theory: MFA Graduation Exhibition, Spring Arts Tower, LA, USA
Why Video: MFA Video Screening, REDCAT, LA, USA
Woman As Image, thesis exhibition, D301, CalArts, California, USA
2007 Déjà Vu, three-person show, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
2006 Just for Fun, performance, Webster Gotts & Robin Close, Sheffield, UK
Curatorial Projects
2018 Showgirl Manifesto, Temporary Contemporary, Huddersfield, UK
2014 You Me You Me You Me, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK
Hollywood Forever, SIA Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Residencies
2011 LoBe London Berlin Art Kunst, Berlin, Germany
2010 Terra Summer Residency, Giverny, France
Collections
2020- Numerous private collections
2009 Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender & Reproduction, Indiana, USA
Awards
2022 1:1 Fund, Jerwood Arts
2018-20 Platform / Freelands Artist Programme, Site Gallery, Sheffield
2008 American Association of University Women, International Fellowship
Funding
2021-22 Developing Your Creative Practice, ACE
2018-19 A-N Mentoring
2017-8 Grants for the Arts, ACE
Selected Press
2019 ‘Platform Shoes: Emerging Artists In Sheffield’, Allan Gardner, The Quietus,
‘Platform 2019 review’, Hannah Clugston, Guardian
