1. Unwash (2011)

    Unwash was a performance created for Hands On: Negotiating New Social Realms, a Live Art event at the Fish Factory, Falmouth, exploring the principles of participation and audience engagement, curated by Lauren Bishop.

    From the programme: “Shireen Darabi’s recent experience living and working on a boat in Sailor’s creek, near Flushing, has inspired her performance Unwash. Her daily survival depended on observing her relationship to her surroundings, and respecting the elements. Darabi invites the audience to interact with local materials, experiencing a journey of cleansing through un-washing, and to work together in a quest to reestablish a balanced relationship to place”

    The audience were invited to follow a trail in pairs, involving decorating each other with mud, seaweed and feathers, washing in river water and picking blackberries and seeds from living human bushes. The project is extended beyond the performance, as the participants took their seeds home with an action to undertake themselves. All materials used in the event were sourced locally, and returned to their natural environments after the performance.

  2. Feast (2011)

    A collaboration with Tom Rogers, this piece attempted to construct an event with the aim of creating specific questioning and thought through participation.

    Tom and myself advertised a free lunch in Lamorva, as part of a three day performance exhibition with Charlotte Jackman (http://ccjackman.blogspot.com/)

    See also http://asapcollaborative.blogspot.com/ 

    Participants arrived and, dressed as waiters, we served each of the 10 guests a meal, varying from a feast of burger, chips, beer, fruit, desert, bottled water, and snacks, to an empty plate served with dirty water.

    The distribution of food at the lunch was based on world food distribution information provided by the UN. We hope to repeat the ‘free lunch’ for UN representatives in the future.

  3. Oxford Street Picnic (2011)

    I arranged a picnic outside John Lewis on Oxford Street with the help of Claire Lynam, we put out a blanket and food on the pavement, with a sign inviting people to join us. My questioning of the use of public space for solely commercial use was addressed in possibly the most positive of actions I have performed so far. Lack of community was challenged as people sat, ate with us, we built friendships with those we could so easily pass by, and we received heartfelt thanks and encouragement.

    I would recommend this action to anyone feeling disconnected from their community.

    The future of street picnics lies in mass and global picnic events. Please organise your own street picnics, and let me know how they turn out.

  4. Watch a Woman Take a Shit (2011)

    Fascinations and investigations into subverting the private and public, questioning the ‘role’ of women, and pushing personal and social boundaries, continued to inform my work in this performance.

    Performed in the safety of my own home, with a selected audience, I carefully and gently encouraged myself and my friends to question our relationships to privacy. Beware though, this performance may soon come to a public toilet near you!

    After lying down on Oxford Street, I wasn’t expecting this to be too much of a challenge to me… But the intimacy, the silence, the breathing, the honesty… was all incredibly powerful. I had a combination of stage fright and constipation… so the performance lasted over an hour, with two seperate tries. The first try was about struggle, about my ‘inability to perform’, which I wasn’t expecting to be addressing in this performance. On the second try, we decided as a group to try a more relaxed atmosphere, in this try the boundaries I was trying to break down in others seemed to break.

  5. Stand, Sit, Lie Down, Pray, Meditate (2010)

    At the height of Christmas shopping madness, I thought it appropriate to perform my acts of stillness on Oxford Street again, this time including the actions of sitting and lying down.  

    The performances felt important to me, action as freedom. Action which goes against social boundaries, against the structure of the massman, the consumer, even better.

    Praying and meditating, I have decided to abandon in this line of performance. The connotations with religion make it too easy for the viewer to write me off, box me. But everyday actions, which we all perform, taken out of context, have the power to provoke questioning.

    Thanks to Sam Hyde for filming, and the London College of Fashion for filming location.

    Stand

    Sit

    Lie Down

    Pray

    Meditate


    Video documentation of these actions was shown at the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and at the Dartington Concourse Festival, 2011

    Future performances in this series will include the action of slow walking, to those of standing, sitting, and lying down.

    Mass actions may also be organised in collaboration with Lottie Child (http://malinky.org/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage), who has been simultaneously exploring a parallel avenue, possibly with the help of Space Hijackers (http://www.spacehijackers.org/).

    Street lessons in stillness/slowness may also be a future project.

  6. Stand, Pray, Meditate (2010)

    Standing, praying, and meditating, outside a shopping centre in Plymouth, was documented with a hidden video camera. Each action was performed for an hour. Each action had varying responses.. With praying and meditating, people seemed to react with playful amusement. Standing still for an hour, people seemed to react with more fear and loathing. I have since considered actions without an explanation to have more power.

  7. Stand, Oxford Street (2010)

    Returning from a trip to Africa, and after spending a year in Cornwall, I wanted to say something about the urban isolation and sheep mentality that I had experienced growing up in London. 
    Oxford Street symbolises the epitome of this to me. I decided to stand still for an hour when I found myself on Oxford Street, to contrast the mindless movement surrounding me.
    I stood still (nearby a security camera, hoping to reclaim the footage later-which was denied me due to reports of ‘heavy rain’…aka light drizzle) for an hour, and was almost surprised by the resentment and anger with which the general public directed towards someone who would dare to behave in an unexpected manner!
    I enjoyed the experience of finding my inner reserves and personal beliefs, and using them to remain in a situation where I am ridiculed/frowned upon/outcast….

  8. Open Exhibition Space (2010)

    The idea of free space was taken further by utilising an exhibition space at Wellington Terrace, Falmouth, as a space free to be used by others.

    Boundaries of authorship are broken as the ‘audience’ was provided with tools of documentation: dictaphone, disposable cameras, and paper.

    My aim was to create an open gallery space, which anyone, not just those formally recognised as artists, can contribute.

    Below are some images from the opening night, the only documentation I myself made of the project.

    The images below are selected from the participant documentation

                                                           

  9. Free Space (2010)

    What is a free space? Do we treat public space as free space? Do we feel free in public space?

    With my sign I attempt to provoke response and thought, opening up the space for dialogue…

    Photo by Ashley Hampson

    The sign was placed in public spaces around Cornwall, and left for the public to experience.

     

    The free space sign is soon to be left in a yet-to-be-decided location, as an offering.

    Free Studio Space

    I declared my studio a free space for a few hours, advertising this around the university. 

              The result was a mixture of creation and destruction…

    The next day the space had been re-graffitied with messages of love and hope.


  10. Ocean Estate (2009)

    A Squatter’s Story:

    In this video installation shown at the Portman Gallery http://portman-gallery.com/exhibitions/26_11_2009_the_dissolving_cube.html, residents of the Ocean Estate in Tower Hamlets and activists share their thoughts on the council’s treatment of squatters, its management of empty housing, and the homeless. 

    Viewers watch the video through a wall of Sytex, metal sheeting used by the council to deter squatters.