Coming to Buzzcut 2016: Robert Hardaker

/ R I S E /

The artist attempts to create a nest for himself from detritus. The artist wears a garment wrong and gathers dead objects around himself, pushing them inside inside the garment till it is full to bursting. 

He then wriggles, pulls at the garment and pushes out the detritus, creating a continuous birthing cycle while rebuilding and reshaping his nest. The wriggling causes the dead matter to rub against the inside of his legs, making them raw.


/ R I S E / was initially developed at IPA Bristol 2015 and performed in various guises.
Can you tell me a little bit about the work that you are bringing to Buzzcut?

/ R I S E / is a improvised durational action which explores a relationship that occurs, in my mind, between death and femininity. I will be continuously birthing dead plant matter and will eat a chicken. Other actions may occur in the moment. 

Do you see your work within any tradition - and are there any artists (performance and beyond) whom you regard as a peer or an influence?

Performance work that happens in the moment. Too many to name.

Buzzcut is concerned with the idea of 'community'. Does community have a special meaning for you, and what relationship do you feel your work has within wider communities?

Friends. I’m happy to be performing alongside so many people I respect and whose work I have experienced elsewhere.

What are you hoping that the audience will experience?

A body involved in an action that stays true to its intention. This work is what it is and probably won’t ask much of the audience other than to spend as much or as little time as they wish with the work. I may engage them directly, I may not. 


Robert Hardaker is a contemporary performance maker and live artist, based in Leicester, England. Hardaker’s practice aims to recollect a supposed co-existing consciousness and memory aided by the curation of a space and the highlighting of the senses. 

Through bodily action he forms his own likeness, memories and emotions around himself; the audience is a malleable entity who can choose to become part of this dialogue. They are not forced into experiencing a set of emotions, yet are guided by the artist into singular, fleeting moments of involvement. The body becomes a vessel for intimacy and reaction, works are impossible but necessary tasks, full of supposed contradictions.