Spontenaity- Improvisation/ Object/ Image.

'Mapping The Familiar Streets' (2010)

After visiting the 'Lost in Lace' (2011) exhibition I am inspired by string. I have this urge to wrap myself in string. String restricts, holds, suspends, frees. String is extensive in terms of its uses and also creates an aesthetic image in a performance space.







'Perhaps we are like stones, our own history and the history of the world embedded in us'.

I begin with loss and memory and I can't get it out of my head. A carcuss, the lumps and bumps engage my senses with each step and with each step a new lump or bump moulds my feet. I can not piece it together but perhaps, perhaps it does not fit. The rocks together, standing the strength of time and weather. It suddenly becomes about breath, in and out, in and out and I am concious of it. The song still plays on repeat always at the back of my mind, revolving for weeks. The blood pumps so fast, in-breaths are short, out breaths are long, circulating air as fast as possible. It is the same content. I can not think. Stamped upon every thought is a smiling face another etched thought.  Emotions are muddled, thoughts moulded. My breath is like his breath, my breath is a struggle. And the song still plays on repeat in my head and I can't get it out 'Running bear loves little white dove'. I begin with loss and memory. The computer is always broken making me all the more thankful to reach the top.

I am pondering on the past, on the objects of the past passed down through generations eventually into my own hands. The trace of being, what is left? The transitional objects of the dead become symbolic of the lost loved one. The objects we cling onto in order to reignite memories of specific lost loved ones.  

A bear belonging to my Great-Grandma. A little worse for wear but still a bear. Its inners spilling into the space.

A solid silver mirror once belonging to another Great-Grandma. Generations reflecting in its glass. Mirrors reflect images, they tell the truth, they make things visible. Generations reflecting in the glass.

How do these objects enhance the performance space? What do they bring to the existing material.



The loss of loved ones prompt a challenge to the meanings of the objects. 'Death reconstructs our experience of personal and household objects in particular ways: there is the strangeness of realising that things have out-lived  persons, and, in this regard, the materiality of the body.' (Gibson.)

 

'The Hankie Project' (2011) is an art performance event which explores the relationships which develop between grieving families and the transitional objects. In this case a handkerchief becomes representitive of the father. The project invited others to share similar stories and objects. (The handkerchief is a transitional object for many.)