Lisa and John Slideshow

I am Project Curator of the Lisa and John Slideshow project. I have been working with the photographer, writer and director David Moore for the last eighteen months to develop this project as an outcome in galleries and theatres. I have engaged with the development of the project through a number of meetings and discussions with David, during which we explored the ways in which the Pictures from the Real World archive could be exhibited and dramatized. This involved us entering into the field of verbatim theatre and model-making. For the exhibition, first shown at the Format Festival, 2017, two maquette were commissioned by David which reproduced the scenes of the original photographs with the presence of the photographer. A theatre production, written and directed by David, was first presented at the Derby Playhouse as part of Format 2017, in which two of the original photo subjects, Lisa and John (played by actors) talked about the background to the photographs and engaged in a narratives about their lives in the 1980s.

At the initial showing of Lisa and John, I led a panel discussion which included David, the actors, Gavin Dent, and one of Lisa and John's daughters.

Before the Derby performance, David staged an open rehearsal as part of the Moose on the Loose Biennale of Research , at London College of Communication in February 2017.

In the late 1980’s, Lisa and John, a couple, then married with four children, agreed to be photographed by a young photographer who just turned up at their doorstep and asked to come in. Thirty years later they talk about their lives and own choice of photographs from the photographer’s archive. The Lisa and John Slideshow explores interplays of photography, theatre and unknown memories around an axis of the everyday.

The Lisa and John Slideshow by David Moore has been developed in collaboration with the University of Westminster and Professor Val Williams of the University of the Arts London Photography and the University of the Arts London Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC), London College of Communication. With thanks to the University of Derby.

David Moore’s accompanying exhibition; ‘Lisa and John, Look at Us!’ will be exhibited as part of Format International Photography Festival 2017.

• https://www.derbytheatre.co.uk/lisa-and-...
• http://www.mooseontheloose.net/event/lis...