People + Place + Participation + Performance
Welcome to Small Acts
Katie Etheridge & Simon Persighetti are artists and performance makers who create and produce participatory projects that explore the interrelationships between people and places.
Operating at the intersection between architecture, community, landscape and performance, our collaborative practice invites audiences to investigate their own relationships with the places in which they live, work and play.
We start by connecting. We walk, talk, listen, explore, invite, activate, experiment, gather.
We recognise that the people who live and work in a place are the experts.
We work from the premise that people have a deep knowledge of their own locality. This belief underpins an artistic approach that seeks to open up new ways to investigate, communicate, question, amplify and celebrate such existing senses of place.
We invent and invite…
We invent walks, publications, performances, games, experiments, events and gatherings. We often place the audience members at the centre of the experience, shifting them from passive spectator to active participant. We create situations in which audiences and participants can connect with each other, whilst they engage with the work.
We work sensitively with the existing social and material infrastructures of a place to draw inspiration, make and locate our work and to engage people with it.
We develop multi disciplinary methodologies for site-specific works that are able to explore, expose and contain multiple perspectives and sometimes conflicting narratives of place. From pub quizzes, to processions, to market stalls, the form of our work is responsive to, and embedded in, the heart of its subject.
Our work ranges in scale from the very intimate: a site-specific tattoo on the palm of your hand, to work that can only be photographed by an aerial drone: a 1:1 scale outline of an invisible building.
It is a joy to work with Katie and Simon: we are always impressed by their creative ideas and execution, their attention to detail, the way they embed themselves into the city and create genuine connections with people through thoughtful and rigorous artistic process. They are undoubtedly some of the most dedicated, inventive and socially engaged artists we have worked with.
Annie Lloyd & Peter Reed
Co-Directors, Compass Festival Leeds
