Larp Party / collaborative art practices
Over the last years, collaborative art practices have become more relevant over the last seven years or so. By collaborative art practices, one may understand collaborative work, collectives, activism or socially engaged work.
The reasons for this insurgence deal with the context - the fact that the society has been under increasing pressure from populist movements, economical strain, ecological disaster, pandemic and war generates new forms of working. It is not really only about working together, but to feel some closeness and to create work out of that experience.
In my understanding, art should not come with a purpose. Artists have the freedom to create, without serving a specific goal. But, of course that everything is political and even artists that paint clouds are making a statement by doing that. Besides, some artists are naturally more active and/or expressive and that his reflected on the work that they do.
One of these collective artistic practices that has became more popular recently is the ‘Larp Party’, common in the Nordic countries. To give an overview, this is an event what merges together notions of theatre, visual arts, food, private event (and conceptual work). In this model, the maker of the event, establishes a location and time for the party, and finds his/hers own guest-list. Each invited person is given a role, which is similar to real life parties, but as the maker imagines it. Let’s say, I imagine that in my party there is always a guy smoking at the door, another one running to the toilette, a girl attacking the fridge and someone hiding a cat in the pocket. I will then invite friends / whoever I want, and give each of them one of these roles. Equally, it could be a party for animal lovers or ghosts. Then, the maker of the party is responsible for creating the set up - decoration, music, food, etc. The guests are free to play their roles as they wish and dress accordingly, as long as they respect the main characteristics of their role and the parameters of the play.
‘Larp Play’ is, in my view, an interesting artistic game to play, which can be used as a devise tool - to create new situations, meet people, set up performance or film productions, etc. It is not as easy as it seems, because of the blurry lines - it is neither a theatre play, nor a realistic portrait, thus, it requires some skill to understand and play it ‘our way’. Perhaps, that is the reason why it is so popular among artists, as the blurriness of the game, which borders performance, theatre, live action, documentary, visual arts, dating, literature and private parties, makes it ‘imaginative’ and unpredictable, as artists like.