Laurence Payot uses the public realm as a stage to make out-of-the-ordinary things happen. People are invited to embark on a journey to transform their everyday and bring their shared utopian visions to life.
From inventing a new local folklore with the people of Dunstable, to infiltrating the digital realm with manifestations of a mysterious online tribe, her artworks take forms that connect people and challenge our perceptions of each other.
Laurence has recently been awarded the prestigious SkyArts Ignition: Futures Fund, a one-year bursary by the TV channel SkyArts, and was shortlisted for the Liverpool Art Prize 2013. Her projects Re-Presentation, I Thought It was Real, Coincidence, and Living Sculptures (forthcoming) have all received Arts Council England Awards for All.
Her work, which exists on the edge of fine art and performance, has been commissioned by renowned museums, galleries and live art festivals, including the Pompidou Centre-Metz (France), Tate Modern, Liverpool Biennial (UK) and the Belluard Bollwerk International (Switzerland).
Born in France, Laurence Payot is currently based at The Royal Standard studios in Liverpool, UK.
Example
Invited by Bracknell regeneration partnerships to create an artwork to reveal some of Bracknell stories, discover what is special about this place where you live, and about you.
During my first visit I was amazed by the co-existence of everyday urban life and the wilder woodlands surrounding it, and I felt this was something really special that I wanted to explore. I imagined people living here as "the people of the forest", with hidden secrets about our ancient woodlands origins.
This first walk is the first step of this journey of exploration. We're searching for something but we're not exactly sure what it is. You are our guides because you know the stories, you have the childhood memories... And we're here to highlight these, and present our findings in a beautiful way which I hope will mean something to you. There will be an exhibition of photographs, videos and texts in the city centre, which we'll invite you to.
Tonight, we're going to walk from here to Bill Hill, from the town to the wild, and whenever you see something you'd like to highlight, you can stop the whole group and we will all look in the same direction with our head torches.
Andy willsher, who is a fantastic photographer (photographed Amy whinehouse) and Tim Brunsden who makes beautiful films will document our walk, and might take portraits of you also.
A little poem from me:
At night, dusk covers the world like lace would cover a body, revealing by hiding, making us look at the details, at the surface of things more closely, more intimately. Things appear in the moonlight with a glow similar to a dream, as if they gathered from the daylight imprinted memories and silent stories.
Our individual lights will come together to create a larger source of energy, a collective glow, a consensus on where to look.
Born in Metz, France, 1981.
Currently lives in Liverpool, England.
Based at The Royal Standard studios and gallery.
Graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de Lyon, France, 2005.
Grants for the Arts for Living Sculpture, Arts Council England, 2014
SkyArts Futures Fund: Ignition Fund, Sky Arts and Ideastap, UK, 2012
Longhouse Action Research Bursary, Longhouse and Multistory, West Bromwich, UK, 2010-2011
Grants for the Arts for Coincidence, Arts Council England, 2010
Grants for the Arts for I Thought It Was Real, Arts Council England , 2009
Awards for All for Maquette for a Landscape, Arts Council England, 2008
Symbiosis: Social Experiment with Living Sculptures as part of Blueprint Festival, for Tate Liverpool, 2015
Wind Charming, for Bedford Creative Arts, 2013, 2014, 2015
People Pavilion, for Common Wealth Games 2014, Streetland Festival 2014, Warrington Festival2014
Let Us Be Great, for Live Collision, Dublin, 2014
Together Sculpture and In Continuum, for the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art Public Program, Liverpool, UK, 2012
Best Time of Your Life, for Blackpool Illuminations, UK, 2012
Rumeur, for Imaginez Maintenant, Pompidou Centre-Metz, Metz, France, 2010
Act Yourself, for No Soul For Sale, Tate Modern, London, UK, 2010
The Man Who Was Everywhere, for Urban Myths, Belluard Bollwerk International Festival, Fribourg, Switzerland, 2010
Resources, at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK, 2015 (forthcoming)
Science Fiction: New Death, at FACT, Liverpool, UK, 2014
Favela, at The Royal Standard, Liverpool, UK, 2012
Double Take, with Mercy at the Liverpool Embassy, London, UK, 2011
Performitivity, with Details on Request at Bath Fringe Festival, UK, 2011
Coincidence (solo), at Metal at Edge Hill Station, Liverpool, UK, 2011
Facing the Artwork, at Werkleitz Centre for Media Art, Halle, Germany, 2011
To Pay Respect to the Generosity of the Three-Minute Punk-Rock Song, Crate, Margate, UK, 2011
Now.Here.This (solo), with 3-Arts, online/ New York, 2011
Creative Halton, with Halton City Council and The Brindley, 2010
Global Studios (curated exhibition), at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK, 2010
Smoke and Mirrors, at the University of Oklahoma, USA, 2010
1000 Smiles, with The Cooperative at Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2010
Prop, Departure Gallery, London, UK, 2010
This and That, Triple Base Gallery, San Francisco, USA, 2009
River, with Open Empty Spaces, and the support of G39, Cardiff, UK, 2009
Back to the Future (solo), at Airspace, Stoke-on-Trent, UK, 2009
Everyday Film and Photography, at Temporary Art Space, Halifax, UK, 2009
All Change, at Rogue, Manchester, UK, 2009
Jamie Radcliffe, at SWG3, Glasgow, UK, 2009
Fear and Optimism, with Red Wire at Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK, 2009
SALE, at The Royal Standard, Liverpool, UK, 2009
Signs of Life, with Three Weeks Project, Liverpool-Wimbledon, UK, 2009
Re-Presentation (solo), at the New Slaughterhouse, Garston, UK, 2008
Characters-The People Behind the Portraits, at the Atkinson Gallery, Southport, UK, 2008
Roy Castle, Vision of Hell, with Red Wire at Wolstenholme Projects, Liverpool, UK, 2008
Skin Deep, at the Atkinson Gallery, Southport, UK, 2008
The Stone, the Wig and the Double Yolk (solo), at View Two Gallery, Liverpool, UK, 2007
BracketTHISIII, with Mercy at Arena House, Liverpool, UK, 2007
Wireless, at Wolstenholme Projects, Liverpool, UK, 2006
Near Distance, with Maze Studios and Arena House, Liverpool and Brighton, UK, 2006
Maree Blanche, at Fort du Bruissin, Villefranche, France, 2005
People Pavilion Residency in collaboration with artist Ailie Rutherford, with Streetland, Glasgow, UK, 2014
Preston Remembers, a research Residency with In Certain Places and Preston City Council, UK, 2012
Springcamp at Timelab, Ghent, Belgium, 2012
Culture LABS at Metal at Edge Hill Station, Liverpool, UK, 2012
Residency in Fribourg to research for a commission by the Belluard Bollwerk International Festival, Switzerland, 2010
Residency at Tripoli University, Libya, with The British Council and Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2007
Moving Sculpture In the Public Realm, a commission by CAAPO, Cardiff, UK, 2011
The great Public Sale of Unrealised but Brilliant Ideas, auction at the Pompidou Centre-Metz, Metz, France, 2010
Table Ronde: “Traversees – fiction urbaine”, conference at the Pompidou Centre-Metz, Metz, France, 2010
This Way, produced for Public Art in Central Park, Plymouth College of Art and Plymouth Central Park, UK, 2010
Wrong Love, a one-night event at A Foundation, Liverpool, UK, 2010
Slide Slam, artist talk at A Foundation, Liverpool, UK, 2009
Truck Stop International Festival, a commission by Metal, Liverpool, UK, 2007
"I am a socially-engaged Artist. My work is multi-faceted.
I work with people in many different ways & across all areas of life & geographical & community contexts.
Much of my work is ‘participatory’. I naturally also work with place, locality & neighbourhoods & attempt to understand & reveal the inter-relationships between people & where they live.
I seek that which makes here, there, everywhere or anywhere distinctive & special.
I thus explore local particularity, identity, sense of place, community, connection & disconnection – the extraordinariness of ordinariness - in order to make a different sort of sense of it all.
What emerges from my encounters & dialogues with people & their places depends upon the process; the deep explorations, the exchanges, the wonderings of minds & wanderings of feet, the conversations, the creative experiments, the research, the Artistic evolution & shared endeavour.
I often use 'mobile objects' as idiosyncratic & identifiable talking/meeting points in my projects – trolleys, tricycles, sandwich boards etc. As well as their functional benefits, such curiosities (including my labcoat)
also offer tangibility & an engaging presence to my work.
So, in short, I work here, there, everywhere, anywhere, with people & their places. I elicit & interpret profound (often profoundly everyday) narratives, imaginatively & in different ways, & reflect them back to audiences
through the creation of physical public works, such as permanent sculpture & other temporary interventions,
through film & photography, music & poetry & special ‘publications’.
Collaboration, in some shape or form, is at the heart of my practice – be it with other Artists,
Designers & Makers or Musicians & Film-makers as well as local residents themselves & other Project Stakeholders.
I also teach part-time on the Landscape Architecture Programme at the University of Gloucestershire
– this, in itself, is a form of collaboration between myself & my students or, at the very least, it is a collective journey into unknown realms & one that I enjoy immensely."
"I am a socially-engaged Artist. My work is multi-faceted.
I work with people in many different ways & across all areas of life & geographical & community contexts.
Much of my work is ‘participatory’. I naturally also work with place, locality & neighbourhoods & attempt to understand & reveal the inter-relationships between people & where they live.
I seek that which makes here, there, everywhere or anywhere distinctive & special.
I thus explore local particularity, identity, sense of place, community, connection & disconnection – the extraordinariness of ordinariness - in order to make a different sort of sense of it all.
What emerges from my encounters & dialogues with people & their places depends upon the process; the deep explorations, the exchanges, the wonderings of minds & wanderings of feet, the conversations, the creative experiments, the research, the Artistic evolution & shared endeavour.
I often use 'mobile objects' as idiosyncratic & identifiable talking/meeting points in my projects – trolleys, tricycles, sandwich boards etc. As well as their functional benefits, such curiosities (including my labcoat)
also offer tangibility & an engaging presence to my work.
So, in short, I work here, there, everywhere, anywhere, with people & their places. I elicit & interpret profound (often profoundly everyday) narratives, imaginatively & in different ways, & reflect them back to audiences
through the creation of physical public works, such as permanent sculpture & other temporary interventions,
through film & photography, music & poetry & special ‘publications’.
Collaboration, in some shape or form, is at the heart of my practice – be it with other Artists,
Designers & Makers or Musicians & Film-makers as well as local residents themselves & other Project Stakeholders.
I also teach part-time on the Landscape Architecture Programme at the University of Gloucestershire
– this, in itself, is a form of collaboration between myself & my students or, at the very least, it is a collective journey into unknown realms & one that I enjoy immensely."
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