I am a Think Tank marked the beginning of Artsadmin’s projects with young people, set up to explore social and political issues through live art and performance processes.
The project took the form of weekly sessions led by Richard DeDomenici and guest artists, and gave the participant a platform to voice their opinions and protest in radical and thought-provoking ways.
The course saw a series of actions created including:
Escalated
A flash mob style ‘freeze’ on broken escalators at Liverpool Street Station during rush hour.
A Blow for Beijing
A huge portion of the crowd lining Whitechapel High Street tried to extinguish the Olympic torch on its journey though London using the power of their breath.
Pimp my Major
A series of calling cards of the four principal mayoral candidates were placed around the Whitechapel area, carrying numbers for answer phone messages, pre recorded with the true policies of each political party. Members of the group dressed as comic pimp characters and distributed the leaflets during Friday rush hour in an attempt to highlight the dirty tactics used by the various parties during their campaigns.
The project was evaluated by artist Lucy Panesar, in the guise of data analyst and market researcher Felicity Mukherjee, as a public event where audience members were asked to decide upon the efficacy of the interventions the I Am A Think Tank group had carried out.
