Led by artist Melanie Jame Wolf in the frame of MIRA FUCHS (a reprise), this workshop is for artists who have made, or who are developing work, based on their own biographical material and stories.

Artists often begin to make their own work by drawing on their personal biography. There is encouragement from institutions, mentors, teachers, producers and peers to “tell your story” or “speak from what you know”. For people from marginalized backgrounds and experience, making these works can provide more platforms and opportunities for their work. The market for personal biography also creates vulnerabilities for artists as these stories become public. Some of these vulnerabilities might include: presenting solo work to communities very different from your own, being asked to speak on life experiences and political questions that have nothing to do with the work, the tabloidization of your biography by theater and venue press departments, the failure of press and institutions to understand that a marginalized experience isn’t necessarily a traumatic one, and the highlighting of personal story over an artist’s body of work.

What does the workshop offer?

The workshop will focus on working with persona and fictionalizing the self as method for producing autobiographical material. It will create a space to consider the vulnerability and discomfort of presenting to audiences both on stage and in talks, and assist participants in mapping personal limits around their work. We will also build a sense of entitlement and agency to shift those boundaries as desired across time whenever necessary. The aim is to equip artists with a practical tool kit for identifying and protecting value and agency in the use of their life stories as material across their careers.