Bonne Maman: The Advantages of Flesh Alison Therriault is a performance artist and musician in Vancouver. This performance is part of her ongoing investigations into the psychology of performance taught by David MacMurray-Smith. What happens to our experience of the self when we get "on-stage"? How can we, as performers, stay grounded in our own experience while at the same time attending to the experience of others, the audience? And what does it mean to play the role of audience member? Are we passive? Or are we participating to some degree? And at what degree of involvement do we become part of the performance? Using creation tools based on Jerzy Grotowski's teachings in Physical Theatre, Alison crafts performances that play with the permeability of the Fourth Wall and that aspire to an experience of theatre that is communion and a collaboration of performer and audience. Feedback is encouraged and appreciated!

This image was taken and composited for the purpose of the fourth photography assignment for the first year 'Still Image' unit of the BA Digital Media Arts degree at London South Bank University. The purpose of this assignment was to 'appropriate' a well known image using Photoshop thereby presenting it in such a way as to give it a new meaning. I chose to appropriate Van Gogh's 'Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear' and recreated my own version of it before compiling both images together to juxtapose the subject matter with the texture of the original. Once again I derived influence from the earlier work of Cindy Sherman but sought to present a new meaning by drawing similarities between myself and Van Gogh, particularly in respect of mental illness and Bipolar Disorder.