‘Some of our best conversations are in cars, benches, parks or porches,” says Lois Weaver, who leads this one-off interactive performance. It might be because we face the same direction, allowing our minds to wander and ourselves to think out loud, she says.
Weaver, who is an artist, activist and one half of the performance troupe Split Britches, has orchestrated Porch Sitting in physical environments with her collaborator Peggy Shaw. Here she reformulates it for Zoom, as part of the Barbican’s online offering, to create a virtual porch for its participants. The purpose of the conversation is to “consider some survival strategies for our new world” as lockdown eases.
We have been encouraged to substitute our profile pictures for a photograph of a favourite place or the view from our windows and there are enviably picturesque scenes, from hilltops in Hastings and the Northumberland coast to Johannesburg, New Zealand and a rose garden in Connecticut. These become our metaphorical porches and the backdrop to a ruminative, engaging and intimate aural show.
Weaver is a relaxing presence, gently pulling in participants. A rotating panel speaks while others raise their hands virtually if they want to express an urgent thought. It creates the atmosphere of a Quaker Church meeting: slightly tense, hallowed, and with words weighted against meaningful silence.
The net effect of an interactive show of this kind is invariably down to those involved and my fellow participants are a thoughtful, articulate and largely privileged bunch, or so it seems, describing lush gardens and beach views, though some mention the lack of outdoor space. The chatter is polite with discussions of time taking on a new texture, of gardening, and one mercifully fleeting mention of baking sourdough. It grows more personal, so it feels as if we are talking to ourselves as well as each other, with the soothing sounds of chirruping birds and ocean waves in the background.
There are peaks of intensity and poetic moments: “There’s an old saying,” offers Weaver. “Don’t weed your garden, garden your weeds.” There are comparisons between rewilding nature and our own lives. Someone describes a photograph of the sea in Hong Kong, taken moments before the onset of a typhoon. The speaker relates it to the global storms taking place – both the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. The conversation is hitting a note of positive consensus about lessons learned in lockdown when one participant storms in with a tirade of negativity. “Nature is beautiful but it’s nothing compared to a kiss on the cheek. Once you’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all. It’s been very, very difficult. Even Grindr stopped working!”
It is funny in its honesty and has a cathartic effect that changes the mood completely. Lockdown has been harder for some than others, we are reminded, and once the floodgates are opened others speak of feeling confined and of the Covid-19 death toll. It seems as if we are stopping just as we’ve got to the meat of it, which Weaver says is often the case. Are we still in the eye of the storm? What have we learned? Are we less free than we were? No answers are found but fruitful questions have been asked, and they linger.
