Scar Stories

Created 2000

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“Scars are always a kind of intimate autobiography. Each scar has its story, its place in time, its locations and its cast of characters. A map of scars is a biography; it is also a map of the cities and the landscapes in which we live. Each scar is a physical souvenir with an emotional echo.“

Scar Stories was an experiment in exploring a single subject across several art forms. It comprises two works — a two-person theatre piece and a video installation for a found space in which a series of interviewees talk about their scars and the stories behind them.

Video and audio research material was collected by interviewing people on the streets of Brussels, and the gathered material was then edited to make a video for installation. The text, images, sounds and gestures from this process provided a starting point for the accompanying theatre performance.

In the Scar Stories performance — staged in a steeply raked auditorium designed to reference a demonstration operating theatre — a man and a woman develop a vast catalogue of accidents, operations, fights and mishaps as they describe the scars they have allegedly accrued.

Video installation and theatre performance.

credits

Conceived and devised by the company

Performers: Richard Lowdon, Terry O’Connor
Direction: Tim Etchells
Text: Tim Etchells, Richard Lowdon, Terry O’Connor
Design: Richard Lowdon
Lighting Design: Nigel Edwards
Soundtrack: Found Sources

Scar Stories is a Forced Entertainment production.

Commissioned by the KunstenFESTIVALdesArts (Brussels)