Caitlin Newton-Broad Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa Sheila Ghelani

Caitlin was in the audience at the National Review of Live Art in March 2004 when dramaturg and performer Raimund Hoghe was asked about his approach to collaboration. ‘When you collaborate with me,’ Hoghe responded, ‘I invite you into my living room.’ Later, having shared this anecdote with Emma and Sheila, all three artists were struck by the confidence of Hoghe’s statement. He inhabits his practice completely - he knows and understands its forms, its concerns and its methodologies so intimately, so tangibly, that he likens it to his home. Discussing this they realised that somewhere along the way, something had happened to them as artists. They could not, like Raimund Hoghe, name their practices as their living rooms. If asked, they would have been hard pushed to describe the layout or the content of such rooms. They decided to do something about this and in the summer of 2004, The Living Room Project was devised to help each of them to reconstruct their ‘living rooms’ and to support the development of their respective practices.

The project culminated five years later in 2009, and by then all 3 artists had got a clear sense of their artistic identities - each of them, attributes a part of this knowledge to the Living Room Project.

Aside from meeting at regular intervals, The Living Room Project organised a 3 week 'making' intensive that culminated in a final open studio event at The Fleapit in London, undertook a 4 week residency at the Performance Space in Sydney and led a DIY project as part the Live Art Development Agency's programme of Professional Development run BY artists and FOR artists.