Speaking Objectively

A collaborative verbatim based performance exploring people’s attachments to the objects they surround themselves with and the stories those objects may hold.

With a spring board of the anthropological studies found in Daniel Miller’s The Comfort of Things which reveals the ways in which objects become our companions in the daily struggle to make life meaningful, and built on found words and conversations with people about their things, Speaking Objectively is a clue, an echo and an imitation, reminding us that we can be so alike in the way we cherish or discard our possessions and the way they let us talk about our lives. 

Through physicality, motion, sound design and storytelling, this performance encompasses consumerist culture, class, societal values and the visceral human need for safety, security and belonging. 

Devised, collected and performed by Kaiya Bartholomew and Nell O’Hara.

Music composed and performed by James Mackay and Angharad Pether.

Photo credits to Julia Bauer.

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“In a book, picked up from a friends table when I visited this summer, these words stood out to me - you can learn a lot more about a person by asking them about their things, the objects they surround themselves with, than by asking them about themselves.”

This performance is a love letter to all the things that people surround themselves with, a celebration of all the stuff that we have collected over a lifetime, the emotion, the reliance and the stories that those things hold. 

This is a playful, comedic and tender exploration of objects, the things we hold on to and the things that get away. 

*All of the words and objects within this performance were borrowed, bought second hand, passed down, found, scavenged or collected…