There is a quiet revolution going on outside of the mainstream theatre world; people are creating little oases of art and entertainment in the comfort of their own homes. Performance artist Karin Paish is a worthy contributor to this noble tradition and has, for a number of years, been running an art space on her houseboat in Sussex. For her final event at Yerba Buena she created a weekend of performance and installation entitled Pinkorama. Five artists together explored the colour pink, resulting, inevitably I suppose, in a cosy, fluffy, feminine sort of event that left the participators with a feeling that all was right with the world.
Karin is an optimist – her belief in the beauty and power of life over death shines through everything she does. The weekend started with her walk through the streets of Shoreham clad only in a fresh flower bikini. The theme of flesh and flowers was played on in the photomontages of Alison Milner and a bedroom decked in satin and orchids called Nature's Pink Paradise. In the kitchen are pink foods galore, natural on the port side and artificial on the starboard. The kitsch end of the pink spectrum was explored by Dan Thompson in an installation of touchy-feely fabrics, found objects, and cute pop classics. On the boat's jetty, Charlotte Walshe performed The Desert Rose, a butoh-inspired movement piece developed in collaboration with live artist Mim King. Emerging from under a silk sheet, fuscia pink hands play and scurry like hybrid life forms somewhere between spider and sea anemone.
Yes, it feels like we're in a 60s Happening, Yes, it has all been done before – but Charlotte on the deck for the last performance of the weekend on this, the last sunny day before the rain, is a personification of all that is pink and lovely.