Zanna Markillie

I had been exploring the technique of re-enactment by re-enacting an African woman making clay pots that I had discovered on Youtube. Researching the artisit Tania Bruguera’s performance pieces Body Tracks – A Tribute to Ana Mendieta (1992) and The Burden of Guilt (1997-99), made me more consciously aware of the power of re-enactment so I wanted to do a performance piece based on this re-enactment I was doing by myself. Bruguera’s re-enactment of Mendieta’s work in Body Tracks (1992) is particularly poignant because I was also re-enacting another artist and relocating this particular performative act into a different context.  I have since done a series of performances that include this re-enactment as a rolling thread, both by myself embodying the African woman and also by a sculpture replica of my legs sitting in the same position as the African woman. As I sit behind the sculpture of my legs to make a pot I sense the African woman sitting behind me. By using the technique of re-enactment I am emphasising a lineage of woman makers, the roots of which are in indigenous earth based cultures. Bruguera re-enacts Mendieta’s work in Havana to reclaim Mendieta’s existence and insert her into the cultural landscape of Cuba. In my performance pieces I also want to insert a lineage into a culture that, in my opinion, does not pay respect to.