Somewhere Between Truth and Its Telling: Memory and its materiality

Abstract

This article is centred on the performance Somewhere Between Truth and Its Telling, which was first performed in 2012. Since then, it has been archived and exhibited in the form of a video work. The performance references key incidents that contributed to its creation: (1) the making of the performance titled My Other History, specifically an archived conversation undertaken as actor research; (2) the censorship of My Other History by the Public Performances Board of Sri Lanka and (3) the embodied actions and objects in the composition of Somewhere Between Truth and Its Telling created in response to the memory of the conversation that preceded it. As such, this article employs selected photographs of the performances in order to position artistic choices made, as well as an exploration of the two interconnected performances through their relationship to the memory of war and the lived experience of traumatic events. The performance of Somewhere Between Truth and Its Telling thus acts as a reflexive framework that opens up a space where experiences of performance-making can be critically evaluated through embodied witnessing that supports an exchange or transmission of memory through storytelling and how accountability comes to be situated in the practice of performing from the lived experience of violence and trauma.