what's in a river, passing - a site & times responsive process
My life/art practice is improvisation. The title refers to the starting point of 'now': what images and energies are passing through me, this place, this day... and how to respond creatively...openly, authentically, boldly.
Right outside The Launderette gallery is Cheltenham Road/Stoke's Croft, a lively and also volatile part of Bristol. In Apr '25 there is incessant war and global systems are breaking down.
What still connects us to sanity, ground, origin, pre-language flow of body and earth?
The phrase 'current conditions are dangerous' (familiar from weather forecasts) felt relevant and kept re-emerging, and my creative actions were rituals of listening and connecting with 'the ground water below the froth'.
Below, photographic documentation of the work I made in the gallery Mon-Sat Apr 7-12th, and performative action on the Saturday. A big thank you to everyone who came, Helen Acklam / The Launderette for this residency opportunity, Marega Palser for creative support and Meriel Paget for photography collated here (additional few images by H Acklam, M Palser & myself).
voices in the cracks
urgent
new lines, borders, maps
"multidimensional sensual happenings with colour/
her bright red costume/ the white chalk -
movement with musicality/ rhythm of the writing and tapping sound of the chalk on concrete mixed with the street sounds....
words we couldn't decipher [...] meanwhile the objects awaited in the gallery."
(audience member Jessica Lerner)
Earth Flower
milk, water, wine
an Ur-image
source of all
"His [/her] story, as the story of every one of us, started long before we were born." Yiyun Lee in A Thousand Years of Prayers
"thanks for letting me into your working space - felt like a sanctuary"
Open Studio Visitor 1
"fast hand tracing/ cracks, chalk, fingernails/ red blouse - red Tesco/ whispering lips/ illuminating the underside/ swallowing light/ a wheel rolling forever"
Visitor 2
"present with the past/ sturdy softness/ seen from behind/ attached tenderly/ grounded floating/ points of aliveness/ still moving/ meetings"
Visitor 3