Making Making Matter:
A Dialogue about Brief Encounters and Enduring Impressions

We presented a performance/dialogue/experiment in making and talking, that articulated and questioned our own working process and aesthetic, while asking what it means to make the making of work matter as an end in itself. We proposed not only to discuss our research but that the discussion becomes the research itself. Drawing on the history of the Theatre Academy building as soap factory Kokos Oy, we scrubbed our hands, arms and face with soap until the bar of soap disintegrated, making ourselves clean but having nothing more to show for it. At the same time we critically and creatively reflected on some of the theories that have influenced and inspired our practice (those of, for example, Henri Bergson and Jane Rendell), experimenting with the making of a dialogue (with words, with paper, with clean hands), while dissolving matter (soap).