Stewart Home and Karen Strang:
‘Fae Fife Tae Angus & Back Again - Via Lud's Toun’
In this new performance Stewart Home and Karem Strang, key collaborators of Pete Horobin and frequent visitors of The DATA Attic in the 1980s, come together to reactivate, reference, and reimagine two of Horobin’s 1984 works, ‘Exchanges’ and ‘Fifeman’, while also connecting with historical events, such as the 1980s miners’ strike and the 17th Century Women of Fife who came to be known as the Dysart Witches. Salt and coal feature in the piece and relate both to Fifeman and Strang's persona as time-slipped Fife wife who is a coal bearer and salter.
Karen Strang is a graduate of Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art, and then continued her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the 1980s where she became interested in live performance, and then secretary for Transmission Gallery on her return. She was introduced to Pete Horobin in 1986, by Stefan Szczelkun, she also met Stewart Home around this time whilst participating in the Festival of Plagiarism. She subsequently worked with Horobin on various projects, including a performance in Dundee, and was a frequent visitor to the Attic until its relocation. Her interest in the Scottish Witchcraft trials has been an important ongoing theme in her visual art and her studio is adjacent to the meeting place of the 17th century witches of Alloa.
Stewart Home was born in London in 1962, where he still lives. When he was sixteen, he held down a factory job for a few months, an experience that led him to vow he'd never work again. After dabbling in rock journalism and music in the early eighties, he switched his attention to the art world. By now he is the author of 17 novels, 7 books of cultural commentary, as well as collections of short stories & poetry. He has long been an underground legend in Europe, North America, and Brazil.
Home met Pete Horobin at the 8th Neoist Apartment Festival in London and participated in the filmed Exchanges. He also visited Dysart, Fife in 1984 where Pete Horobin lived temporarily with his sister as the Fifeman project was realised. He then joined Horobin for part of Pram (Pedestrian Ramblings Around Myland) 1984.