After another tumultuous winter for the arts community, Performing Lines reached out to some of our associated artists to touch base. In this series of interviews, which will be published throughout October, we spoke about lockdown coping strategies, how each artist’s practice and perspective has changed over the past year, and where creative work fits in the middle of a pandemic (if at all).
Today we hear from Eliza Scott, an interdisciplinary artist working across performance, drag, sound and film.
As many have pointed out, art and culture that we can access at home has been the saving grace of lockdowns. What are some of the things you’ve been reading, watching, or listening to?
I’ve been getting really into short stories over lockdown. Specifically those of Grace Paley, Joyce Carol Oates and Ali Smith. I was lucky that right at the beginning of lockdown, I hired a bunch of Ali Smith and Joyce Carol Oates books from the library and they’ve really kept me going. I cannot recommend their work highly enough.
Joyce Carol Oates’s book of short stories, The (Other) You is brilliant and flips perception and storytelling in such an innovative way – I still find myself thinking about some of the stories in that book.
