3 land art pieces to make this summer first:
1: Tide Map
Durational piece around the shore tide, our new ability to travel to the edge of our counties. Go to the Flaggy shore beach (or similar beach) at a time when it has low attendance (early morning?), make a performance around mapping the tide coming in over the 6 hours. Can check tides here
https://www.tide-forecast.com/locations/Galway/forecasts/latest/six_day
Description: Walking along the edge of the tide line as it slowly comes up the beach. Do this for as long as possible, staying at the edge of the water, ideally for the 6 hours of the incoming tide. Accompanying the sea as it travels in on its journey. Durational.
Importance of venue: Flaggy shore beach is contained and quite a negotiable space to travel along, jelly fish and rocks allowing. Tide moves in fast as I have witnessed. How long could I sustain the action for though. It would be freezing. How to film? How to record this? How much to record of this?
2: Burren Crawl- traversing the mountain
Durational crawling piece either up, or laterally, along the ground in the Burren National park. Description: Slow crawl on hands and knees along the exposed limestone of the mountain. Ideally from the lower level up to the top, and back down.
Importance of Venue: The limestone ground there is so unique- sculptural and so interesting- that it lends itself to performative work and this piece has to feature an alternative Croagh Patrick. The lower area here, at Mullaghmore Mountain, where you can park and climb up, is pretty much just rock, so it would be doable. As you go up there is a lot of scree and briars and bushes. Less manageable..
How to document: A: record it from Artist Point Of View (headcam) as you move along the ground, and B: record from above, high up ideally, so as to include the surrounding topography. So as to place artist amongst the scenery, so both elements are given equal importance.
Point of this: Thinking about the idea of a geographical spiritual pilgrimage. It’s an homage to nature, to my kid who still crawls, to the body. It’s also about the internal reasons for a pilgrimage, which are many. It’s also a gesture of faith and and act of hope, but a pilgrimage to nature and the body, not Jesus :) .
3: Field Crawl- crop circles
Another durational crawl. A field with long grass. crawling around in a very large circle, so that the crawl path leaves the grass underneath flattened temporarily, so as creating a pattern, similar to a crop circle. This crawled circle would be repeated as many times as possible.
How to document: Once again record from 2 viewpoints, – the lowdown crawl through the grass from artists viewpoint, and up high overall view, so circle can be seen being created.
Point of this: Thinking of this as an act of subversion- a crop circle is thought to be made by UFO’s. Also considering the consumerist and machinated nature of modern farming.
Other ongoing side ideas to be made:
Face politics- write all over my face, along the sagging bits and the lines, like the nasio-labial folds and around my eyes and cheeks and chin. Like a surgeon pre-face lift but I would write ‘fuck you’ instead. To address middle age insecurities and the fact that there are VERY few women my age not thinking about this shit, shallow or not. Up close photographs of this.
Hysterical Strength– durational performance
Lifting heavy shit. Hysterical strength is a display of extreme strength by humans, beyond what is believed to be normal, usually occurring when people are in life-and-death situations. The classic anecdotal example is of parents lifting vehicles to rescue their trapped children.
Example- carrying a large human along
lifting something v heavy- a car?
pulling something very heavy- dragging something along the ground
All while dressed in formal wear- in a nod to occasion making and to change the narrative of the action. For some reason I am drawn to doing this in a church aisle. Like a subversive offering to jesus?
Construct/Destruct– durational long term performance
Have been thinking about this for a year? I want to build a concrete structure, ideally human height. Then using my sledgehammer, break it up. Then, only using the broken pieces of the original structure, rebuild it. And then sledgehammer it again. Repeat for as many times as possible, until it’s literally a pile of dust. Construct, destruct. About the act of constructing and destructing, an act of futility, an act of meditation. Venue: ideally a large open space like an unused building site. So it can be recorded from afar, over a few weeks.
