'The wrong tool for the job' Live performance at The Crypt Gallery, London, 2021.
'The wrong tool for the job' is a live performance with the absurdity of mental illness as its heart. As a sufferer of mental illness, specifically Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the artist is incredibly aware of how 'the absurd' is a theme that often surfaces within her work. The compulsions she engages with on a daily basis are, even to herself, often very strange and barely seem to make sense. In this exclusive performance, Laura explores this concept by trying to force an outcome in a way that is completely nonsensical. The performance is frustrating and hard to watch, just as it can be to watch a sufferer of mental illness when you don’t understand the person’s twisted rationale.
In addition to themes of the absurd, 'The wrong tool for the job' is also a piece about the pure frustration that comes with mental illness, in particular the issue of communication. For those who suffer with mental illness, we can often find that it can stifle our ability to communicate and describe our experiences and it can make communicating in general extremely hard. In this performance the artist desperately tries to make the typewriter write, but fails after using the completely wrong tool for the job.
August, 2021
© 2021 Laura Greenway