23.05.17 – 6.30pm

Performance / Talk directed by
Bryan Mc Cormack (artist and curator of YESTERDAY. TODAY. TOMORROW.)
and
Henry Bell (Sheffield Hallam University)
performers from Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. is a conceptual work on the current migrant phenomenon by Bryan Mc Cormack. The core of the project is the visualization of the European refugee crisis. Since only the refugees themselves can visualize and give voice to this humanitarian disaster, this work was created by the participation of hundreds of them: Each refugee received 3 sheets of paper and colored pens and was invited to draw 3 sketches, one of their life before (Yesterday), one of their current life (Today) and one of their life imagined in the future (Tomorrow).

A 70-90 minute live Performance of Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. is staged on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, curated by Bryan Mc Cormack and Dr Henry Bell featuring more than 30 Performance for Stage and Screen students from Sheffield Hallam University.
By using these drawings as a starting point for lived performance/debate, in the style of Augusto Boal’s Image Theatre, the performers will work with audience members to create human tableaux in response to the drawings. By working in this way, the focus moves towards how the experience and aspiration of the audience meets the experience and aspiration of the refugees.

The performance is an active way of meditating upon the experience of the creators of the drawings, rather than a voyeuristic opportunity to observe the people at the centre of this humanitarian crisis. By participating in another traceable component of their lives, the aim is to enable their voices to be heard with dignity.