Adam-Jon Williams and Rose Gelderblom Waddilove work together under the collective identity #AJRR, @AJWRGW or AdamJonRoseRoses. As a collective they create open source performance artworks.
Adam-Jon and Rose Gelderblom began to work together quite seriously from 2015 after Rose came back from a trip to Palestine. They began to converse about similarities in their work and the kinds of themes they were wanting to address. They created the work The Wall, a performance that involves one person laying down bricks in an attempt to build a wall, and another person, with the same amount of speed and effort, removing these bricks. This performance reflects on cycles of oppression and solidarity, reflecting on the ways of the world. The Wall is the first installment of their larger project PERFORMANCE; ENGAGEMENT. This has been an ongoing project for the past three years which consists of 7 performance artworks, each of which comes with a set of instructions on how to execute these performances. Other performances include Strandloper which involved walking across crates on the beach, and Raft which involved building a raft to float amongst rocks in the shallow part of the beach.
The complementary writing style and practice between Adam-Jon and Rose creates a balance that culminates in each performance. An essential part of their performances are the collaborations that bring their work to life. For the opening of the Cape Town Art Fair they the piece An Open Letter to the Ones I Love and Have Loved Before was performed. With a custom mix produced by Vegar Nostveld Lien and Natalie Perel of WDR, along with loosely fit pants, sheer shirts and the ceramic earrings provided by various contributors, married together with their words and speak to their desire to collaborate with others on their work, as well as being able to bring to the fore the space they find themselves in at this point in the project; the desire to feel and show gratitude. A showing of gratitude to their audience, as the audience makes it more than a performance between Adam-Jon and Rose. A showing of gratitude to those who contribute to their project, as this makes each performance more than words on paper. A showing of gratitude to their families.
“[The audience] must be able to get lost in the art,” Rose explains. Through their multisensory performance they managed to create a moment of pause in the overwhelming and sometime chaotic space of the Art Fair. The movement, the sound, the story unfolding; the viewer became consumed. Rose and Adam-Jon described this particular piece as an exercise of gratitude and humility. “It allows us a moment to rebalance and reflect, and go back [to other performances] with more conviction,” Rose explains.
“They [the performances] are exercises that are filled with passion and intensity,” Rose adds. Their desire is to give this project to the world so that people can use it as a source of reflection and inspiration.