Context

This was a slight twist on our standard Society Cut-Out performance, where we moved it to the street and placed the performer in a blindfold. We chose Brighton for our most public UK performance yet; we hoped it’s liberal reputation would stand us in good stead and we weren’t to be disappointed!

Realisation

The start of this performance was nerve wracking for the model as we had no idea how it would pan out, but felt certain the police would be called at some point. As it turns out we needn’t have worried; it was a very wholesome experience and we were made to feel very welcome.

That said, we did misjudge the situation slightly. We’d set this performance up as a public vote, whereby the model held 24 cards in their hand, and had 24 squares drawn on the dress. Signage was erected that the model would be there for 90 minutes or until all the cards had been removed from the model’s hand.

However, within about 10 minutes the model was basically completely nude; and the impact of what we were doing was diluted. People did still continue to come over, cutting smaller and smaller squares of the small pieces left on the model, and in some cases picking up pieces from the ground and cutting them.

As far as we can tell no-one took a card out of anger or upset. A couple were taken but we think these were instances where people thought it was all part of the activity, rather than a specific vote against the nudity. This is something we would need to rethink when repeating this performance, so as to make this aspect clearer.

One particularly heart warming moment was when a young child asked “Mummy, why’s that man not wearing any clothes?”. The mother brought the child over and helped the child read the sign and explained what we were doing and why. When we were planning this performance the reactions of parents had been one of our key concerns, as this was the first time we had done something so public in the UK, and this one small act immediately helped us feel so much more comfortable and settled in the performance.

Although the model was basically nude after about 10 minutes we carried the performance on for about an hour before stopping it earlier than planned; mainly because we felt the impact was diluted. So many people had said so many nice things whilst we were carrying it out, and it’s definitely something we’d look to repeat. Shop owners were even coming out of their stores to take photos and participate.

In the end we were disappointed the police didn’t show. We’d expected that they would but that they would potentially let the performance continue, particularly if it was being accepted by the public We were intending to attempt to leave the area nude, to see how that changed the police response – it would be interesting seeing if they would try to justify nudity on one street but not on another. Given that the police didn’t arrive during the performance, we felt it would be too risky to leave the area naked, as we would have less obvious justification if we were stopped by them. The model dressed and was invited for a drink by people in a nearby café; in retrospect it would have been good to have the model remain nude and see if they would still have been invited into the café, and whether the café would have allowed it.