‘Working Through Feelings’ was a durational live performance made as part of Re-Vision Performing Arts Festival, held at Catalyst Arts, Belfast, Saturday September 26th 2020. The performance was an interactive piece where the artist asked the audience to volunteer any negative feelings they were having. The artist then wrote this feeling on the wall, and proceed to perform a fitness exercise to ‘work through the feeling’, talking to the audience continuously as they did so. The performance lasted for approximately 2 hours.  

Photos of the performance. Images courtesy of Ben Malcomson and Tara Carroll

This work progressed in 2021 into a collaborative work between the artist and social media users. The artist put out a call through social media which said: 

‘Wanted please: your feelings. Please send me a feeling which you are having, a good feeling, a sad feeling, angry, despairing, irritated, worried feeling, I’ll accept them all with thanks. I am an artist who works with emotions and exercise to make performance art. You can DM me your feeling, or post it as a comment, or send it to me via my website contact, the link of which is in my bio. I will keep your identity anonymous of course. The feelings that are donated will be incorporated into an upcoming performance work. It’s free and it’s for a good cause- ART! Also please feel free to share this post. Thank you in advance for reading this and your potential participation.’

The artist received 56 responses to the call out. A list of these responses can be read at the link below

https://rachelmacmanus.art/2021/04/13/all-paths-are-collaborative/

A performance to video was then made in April 2021 as a response to the feelings, which can be viewed below.

https://youtu.be/o7LUgACA7WA

This link is called Working Through Feelings 2, Performance to Camera, Co Clare, Ireland, April 2021