PROPOSAL MACAP 709
Sensing:
We Matter
‘Artists, who remember their wildness better than most, are animal artists, lifting their heads to sniff a quick wild scent in the air…’
Griffiths, J (2006) ‘Wild’.
I want to sink into wetness, liquid sun, silk and sensuality. Plug into the electric light twitch of dark matter. We matter. I want the naturalness of power and desire: A play of yin and yang, domination and submission. Instinct moves, participates, influences interest, towards the thrill of contact. These simple and silent relationships, that dislodge the centre but absolutely root here.
In times of great crisis, what acts as a strong holding? What can I / we lean into?
Last year I explored ceremonial happenings, working alongside elemental allies, invoking human and non-human relationships, perspectives and voices, specifically the Ancient and Vibrant Grandmothers. Atmospheres, forcefields, traces, and ritual garments were created, the body was shape-shifted, animated and expanded into a wider wilder Self-sense.
What has become clear is that my practice belongs outside. This year I want to continue this exploration of multi-directional relationships that will appear one-to-one. A celebration of I matter / You matter / We matter: a prostration or primal prayer that simultaneously abandons the notion of an encapsulated Self whilst incarnating an embodied and deeply connected sense of Self.
I want to draw focus to specific relationships and encounters, that remain non-verbal, simple, clear and direct. That stand outside of time, in the sense that they are timeless, both continuous and still – a moment of contact. My starting point is a disposition rather than an action. It’s what happens in my body as a response to matter, the aliveness of us, and an instinct that moves me. I don’t know why but I am naturally drawn towards contact – and I will make artwork in order to find out / make sense of or consolidate these points of contact.
Methods:
The question: What is it that I want to touch? And how? Will drive my practice. This is a quiet process which requires slowness, sensing and duration and a porous way of being that continuously attunes to what is unfolding, here, now. I will trust my instinct for doing things and how this instinct meets the world, to make sense of but not to ‘capture’ or ever fully know. I will spend time in specific places and with materials. I will let my feet lead and my belly sense. I will not only question but expand the notion of documentation. This is a performative practice that happens live, what is translated into a gallery space is unknown – it may be a performance or installation or trace.
Methodologies:
Somatic and embodied methodologies that foreground instinct, sensation, intuition and direct experience are at the core of my practice. Spontaneity - what captures my interest and where or how my instinct moves me – will inform my practice. I will let the artwork happen, creating work as I go along, making sense through the making of something. Allowing not-knowing, following, returning, curiosity and a ‘staying-with’ – are fundamental approaches. The critical framework that will feed and support my practice: speculative fiction, new materialist feminisms, animist and indigenous cosmologies.
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