Abstract

A bench with a plaque reading Sit with me for a moment and remember is placed in a gallery or a public place and an encounter takes place. It is a dedication to a loved one and an invitation to a stranger.

A meditation on remembrance, this piece enacts an encounter with an absent friend. The audio summons a stranger or a ghost, a living presence or a fleeting memory of someone that may have been lost. Sit with me for a moment and remember makes manifest Michael Pinchbeck’s recent practice as research about and into memory, nostalgia and loss. It continues his ongoing research interests into ‘staging loss’ and ‘performing absence’ that surfaced in a symposium he co-convened at the University of Lincoln in 2016 - Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration. The audio features the voices of his children and his parents, Tony and Vivienne. The piece was exhibited at TaPRA Gallery, Salford 2017. It has also existed as a one-to-one performance shown at venues and festivals in Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Derby.