Thu 28 Aug, 7.30-8.15pm
Gallery 2
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our exhibitions as accessible as possible for every visitor. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
For complete access information about the gallery, please visit https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/.
By Word of Mouth is a new improvised work of 40 minutes, arising from Tim Etchells’ interest in the poetics of the commonplace, the discarded and the overlooked. After conducting research walks around Whitechapel, noting down fragments of overheard conversation, mobile phone calls, graffiti sentences, signs and slogans, the artist will animate the materials he’s gathered, tuning in to the desires, narratives and unconscious mutterings of the city. In the performance diverse language materials are placed side by side, mixing distinct impulses and reflections, in an improvised dialogue with Etchells’ collaborator, violinist Aisha Orazbayeva.
Tim Etchells is a UK-based artist and author whose work spans performance, visual art, and fiction. His projects and public installations have been presented at major institutions around the world including Tate Modern, Frieze Sculpture, Hayward Gallery, Kunsthalle Vienna, and Centre Pompidou Paris. Etchells has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as director of the world-renowned Sheffield performance group Forced Entertainment, as well as collaborating with numerous musicians, artists, and performers including Meg Stuart / Damaged Goods, Marino Formenti, Tony Buck (The Necks), and Aisha Orazbayeva.
Etchells’ collection of short fiction Endland was published by And Other Stories in 2019 and his book on Forced Entertainment Certain Fragments is widely celebrated for its insights on collective performance making. Monographs on his work with Forced Entertainment and on his body of neon installations were published in 2023 by Spector Books in Germany. Etchells’ awards include the Manchester Fiction Prize in 2019, the Tate / Live Art Development Agency Legacy: Thinker In Residence (2008), the artist of the city of Lisbon in 2014, and the Spalding Gray Award in February (2016). Under his leadership, Forced Entertainment received the International Ibsen Award 2016 for its groundbreaking contribution to contemporary theatre and performance.
