Park Nights: 13 pieces, 17 feet

Artist Becky Beasley's performative project, 13 pieces, 17 feet, finds its point of departure in photographer Eadweard Muybridge's extraordinary 1878 panoramic photograph of San Francisco. The third panel of the photograph portrays the house of railroad millionaire Charles Crocker, including the infamous 'Spite Fence' he built around the house of his neighbour, Nicolas Yung, a German Undertaker, whom Crocker was unable to persuade to sell his land.

Performed by writer, performer and sound artist Melanie Wilson, this monologue in thirteen parts and multiple voices will follow an alternating structure between historical fictions and abstract texts, and will incorporate exquisite details of archival photographs, creating an event which spirals slowly into the black hole at the centre of an extraordinary object. The project has been developed in collaboration with writer Chris Sharp, and in partnership with Kingston Museum & Archive and the Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, as part of Muybridge in Kingston.

Becky Beasley was born in 1975 in Portsmouth, England, and currently lives and works in Antwerp. Beasley participated in Slow Movement at Kunsthalle Bern (2009), Word Event at Kunsthalle Basel (2008) and The Malady of Writing at MACBA (2009—2010). In 2010 she was commissioned by Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston and the Serpentine Pavilion to produce her first institutional projects. She was also selected for the British Art Show 7. In 2009 she published her second artist’s book, Thomas Bernard Malamud. She is represented by Laura Bartlett Gallery, London and Office Baroque, Antwerp.

Chris Sharp (b. 1974, USA) lives and works in Paris. His writing has appeared in Art Review, frieze, Kaleidoscope, Art Monthly, among other magazines. He recently co-curated with Joanna Fiduccia The Zero Budget Biennial,, and he is currently co-curating with Gianni Jetzer Under Destruction, a survey of destruction in contemporary art, which will take place at the Tinguely Museum, Basel from October 2010 to January 2011 and the Swiss Institute, New York from March to April 2011, and preparing A Necessarily Incomplete Anthology of Withdrawal, to be published by Archive Books, Berlin, in 2011.

Melanie Wilson is an award-winning writer, performer and sound artist, based in London. She makes performances, installations and sound walks that live in theatre and cinema spaces and in the street. Her solo work includes 'Simple Girl', 'Iris Brunette', 'Mari Me Archie', ‘The View From Here’ and 'every minute, always' and has been presented nationally and internationally. She has collaborated with Rotozaza, Coney, Clod Ensemble, Shunt, Chris Goode, Boilerhouse, A2, Peter Arnold and Abigail Conway. She is currently a BAC Supported Artist and her work is produced by Fuel Theatre. www.melaniewilson.org.uk

Park Nights

Park Nights is an annual series of music, theatre, performances, talks and film screenings staged on Friday nights in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, this year designed by Jean Nouvel. Park Nights culminates on the weekend of 16 and 17 October with Serpentine Gallery Map Marathon, the latest in the Serpentine's series of Marathon events, conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Park Nights
Becky Beasley and Chris Sharp
13 pieces, 17 feet, performed by Melanie Wilson
24. September, 2010, 20:00