Try
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drXvp_q4YYw
A basic handheld video giving the general idea...a more professional video of the event is being prepared.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Artist's talk
Welcome to Ice and Fire – awaiting transformation
Are we ready for trans-formation?
Ice and Fire is a journey through a process in which we are all participants.
Much of my work involves preparing processes, and then letting them run their course, by allowing the innate properties of materials to speak their own language to make the work – an inevitable unfolding through time.
Once ‘out there’ the work no longer belongs to me, it has its own energy and you have your own interactions with it. We are a shifting community of participants that engage with it, here in our bodies or virtually over the web around the globe!
I think one of the most valuable things someone said to me about looking at art was:
…being with art (not just looking at it) is a matter of a fierce attention to what is present, which may be challenging and hidden. We are asked to be present to the precise details of the work, but also to what is going on inside of ourselves hidden – what are we thinking, feeling, sensing? So what is going on – here now?
I’m not going to explain the work but I’ll describe it… so let’s start with ‘awaiting transformation’
A – wait: In our culture waiting is seen as something passive and a bit of a waste of time, but the word’s root means "to be strong, be lively". This root also gives us awake, watch, and (in an extended form) vigil. So perhaps "waiting" is not so passive as it might first seem - it has a sense of being awake and an aware state of being. Contemplation even…
Trans – formation: Trans- comes from the root tere - to cross over, to pass through, to overcome
Form: comes from the Greek root merph which gives us morph/ morphosis meaning form, beauty, outward appearance.
So we have:
Being strong and lively as we pass through, cross over, beauty and outward appearance.
In the WEST, under the mass of the tower by the door that opens directly onto the City, there is a block of ice, it is:
- Rectangular, at the moment, but it’s going to melt in about 24 hours
- It’s cold - if you stand under it
- It is slightly yellow because it is partly made of Thames water
- It is suspended high up in the west – the occident. It is the furthest point in the building from the East – the orient. You could say it is dis-orientated.
- It’s hung by a strip of linen frozen into it; an 8 foot long piece of linen 18 inches wide: a shroud, swaddling, bandage or Fair Linen altar cloth perhaps?
The ice is hung by a hook – not a neat butcher’s hook from a trendy kitchen shop, but an industrial meat-hook. When I found it lying on the pavement, it still had blood on it – it is an instrument used in mass slaughter. It is hung by a piece of stainless steel wire from a loop in the light of the setting sun.
At the EAST end
- nearest the orient
- nearest the sunrise
- nearest Jerusalem...there is a circle of ash.
Ash – what happens when you burn matter, it is the quintessential essence of a material made formless. Before we had square hearths and chimneys we used to sit AROUND the fire with our backs to the dark. The hearth was the ancient heart of the home, a place of safety, warmth, conviviality.
The circle is 64” diameter – 5’ 4”. In it are placed small candles
- they are creamy yellow with a coating of ash because they are made of bees wax….
- they are all slightly different because they have been made by hand
- as the wax burns it is melting into the ash
- they are giving out light and heat
- the ash is held in place by a steel band
And in between the west and the east at the moment we have space with people sitting it. We have a North facing wall along which are stacked:
- 11 empty steel bowls that have been blacken by extreme heat
- Art materials
- 300 bees wax lights
- Chairs
- Cushions and rugs
- Poetry, prose and stories
- Later, a musician will play the Oud there and Contemplatives will meditate
A wall of provisions for the journey perhaps…
Under the ice there is a 12th bowl – it is catching the melt water. In it is a spoonful of powdered bronze. Every two hours a new bowl will be placed under the ice until 12 bowls have passed under it and placed in a line up the aisle. At the end of 24 hours of waiting:
Diana Wackerbath for her wonderful writing on my blog.
I would like to finish with a quote from Heraclitis – a Greek philosopher born in 537 BC. It can be translated in several ways:
‘ Everything flows, nothing stands still or
Everything flows and nothing stays or
Everything flows and nothing abides or
Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed or
Everything flows; nothing remains or
All is flux, nothing stays still.’
Thank you
Are we ready for trans-formation?
Ice and Fire is a journey through a process in which we are all participants.
Much of my work involves preparing processes, and then letting them run their course, by allowing the innate properties of materials to speak their own language to make the work – an inevitable unfolding through time.
Once ‘out there’ the work no longer belongs to me, it has its own energy and you have your own interactions with it. We are a shifting community of participants that engage with it, here in our bodies or virtually over the web around the globe!
I think one of the most valuable things someone said to me about looking at art was:
‘Artists rarely do things for no reason’
…being with art (not just looking at it) is a matter of a fierce attention to what is present, which may be challenging and hidden. We are asked to be present to the precise details of the work, but also to what is going on inside of ourselves hidden – what are we thinking, feeling, sensing? So what is going on – here now?
I’m not going to explain the work but I’ll describe it… so let’s start with ‘awaiting transformation’
A – wait: In our culture waiting is seen as something passive and a bit of a waste of time, but the word’s root means "to be strong, be lively". This root also gives us awake, watch, and (in an extended form) vigil. So perhaps "waiting" is not so passive as it might first seem - it has a sense of being awake and an aware state of being. Contemplation even…
Trans – formation: Trans- comes from the root tere - to cross over, to pass through, to overcome
Form: comes from the Greek root merph which gives us morph/ morphosis meaning form, beauty, outward appearance.
So we have:
Being strong and lively as we pass through, cross over, beauty and outward appearance.
In the WEST, under the mass of the tower by the door that opens directly onto the City, there is a block of ice, it is:
- Rectangular, at the moment, but it’s going to melt in about 24 hours
- It’s cold - if you stand under it
- It is slightly yellow because it is partly made of Thames water
- It is suspended high up in the west – the occident. It is the furthest point in the building from the East – the orient. You could say it is dis-orientated.
- It’s hung by a strip of linen frozen into it; an 8 foot long piece of linen 18 inches wide: a shroud, swaddling, bandage or Fair Linen altar cloth perhaps?
The ice is hung by a hook – not a neat butcher’s hook from a trendy kitchen shop, but an industrial meat-hook. When I found it lying on the pavement, it still had blood on it – it is an instrument used in mass slaughter. It is hung by a piece of stainless steel wire from a loop in the light of the setting sun.
At the EAST end
- nearest the orient
- nearest the sunrise
- nearest Jerusalem...there is a circle of ash.
Ash – what happens when you burn matter, it is the quintessential essence of a material made formless. Before we had square hearths and chimneys we used to sit AROUND the fire with our backs to the dark. The hearth was the ancient heart of the home, a place of safety, warmth, conviviality.
The circle is 64” diameter – 5’ 4”. In it are placed small candles
- they are creamy yellow with a coating of ash because they are made of bees wax….
- they are all slightly different because they have been made by hand
- as the wax burns it is melting into the ash
- they are giving out light and heat
- the ash is held in place by a steel band
And in between the west and the east at the moment we have space with people sitting it. We have a North facing wall along which are stacked:
- 11 empty steel bowls that have been blacken by extreme heat
- Art materials
- 300 bees wax lights
- Chairs
- Cushions and rugs
- Poetry, prose and stories
- Later, a musician will play the Oud there and Contemplatives will meditate
A wall of provisions for the journey perhaps…
Under the ice there is a 12th bowl – it is catching the melt water. In it is a spoonful of powdered bronze. Every two hours a new bowl will be placed under the ice until 12 bowls have passed under it and placed in a line up the aisle. At the end of 24 hours of waiting:
- The West will be connected to the East
- The City to the Sanctuary
- Cold to the Warm
- The linen released
- The ash bear the marks of 300 beeswax candles- burnt
- 12 bowls transformed
- A poet and musician ‘enchanted’ the space
- A community of people will have borne witness here and around the globe…transformations will have taken place….crossed over and through…
I would like to thank St Ethelburga’s Centre for hosting the event especially, Helen Gilbert, Jeff Parkinson, and Simon Keyes.
Also Hazel Bradley- the narrator,
Philip Wells – The Fire Poet
Attab Haddad – Oud Player, Diana Wackerbath for her wonderful writing on my blog.
I would like to finish with a quote from Heraclitis – a Greek philosopher born in 537 BC. It can be translated in several ways:
‘ Everything flows, nothing stands still or
Everything flows and nothing stays or
Everything flows and nothing abides or
Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed or
Everything flows; nothing remains or
All is flux, nothing stays still.’
Thank you
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Ice and Fire...
Friday was manic - starting at 4am it involved last minute preparations: collecting leaflets from the printer, taxi rides and dashing up step ladders.
But all went to plan, and once the event started I was held in a rather dream-like state while Ice and Fire evolved around me. Thanks to Helen Gilbert, the St Ethelburga’s Projects coordinator and Hazel Bradley who kept the programme on track and welcomed morning, afternoon and night. Thanks too to Jeff who kept the practicalities under control and cooked wonderful sustaining stews and all the St Ethelburga’s team who cooked, photographed and videoed the event.
Ice and Fire was a year in the making, and its actuality was an amazing experience. My most vivid memory is sleeping with melting ice…the constant, irregular drip and the line of bowls extending into the darkness was very special. I got up at 4am to place the sixth bowl – which was rather surreal…the building was unexpectedly warm at night and seven other cocooned bodies lay sleeping on Persian rugs. The bowl rang out as it was struck by the melt water, the ice was held infront of the dimly lit west window, with the rumble of the City outside – all watched by the small blue point of light of the Camcorder. Reminding me that I was not the only witness of the event in the night.
When the twelfth bowls was placed I was struck by the piece’s skeletal quality –a giant spine down the centre of the building, which people wandered up and down like a ladder.
So much richness. Philip Wells (Fire Poet) and Attab Haddad (Oud) played and proclaimed hallowed ground wonderfully on Friday evening. Hazel Bradley read a variety of readings: the story of the Chinese Rainmaker who created the space that allowed the longed for rain to fall, to the joyous and wonderful coming of ‘Spring’ to Narnia.
Night and Morning prayers with Taize chants at midnight marked the passing of the hours; the installation a participant in our liturgies.
We finished the event with a walk down to London Bridge to pour the melt water into the Thames. A most wondrous moment as the golden water was poured from one of the bowls over the parapet of the bridge - it caught the light, fell like a golden stream into the River and flowed with a distant sparkle out of sight into the dark. A lovely farewell...
I mentioned in my talks about the project being a transient community; an important part of which was the series of contemplatives who sat quietly and held the space for an hour at a time. And thanks to all those who came along and inhabited the space for a while, especially those who came back several times and sat or wandered for many hours.
If you would like to leave a comment you need to have/open a google mail email address, then click Follow to become a Follower. I look forward to hearing from you...
But all went to plan, and once the event started I was held in a rather dream-like state while Ice and Fire evolved around me. Thanks to Helen Gilbert, the St Ethelburga’s Projects coordinator and Hazel Bradley who kept the programme on track and welcomed morning, afternoon and night. Thanks too to Jeff who kept the practicalities under control and cooked wonderful sustaining stews and all the St Ethelburga’s team who cooked, photographed and videoed the event.
Ice and Fire was a year in the making, and its actuality was an amazing experience. My most vivid memory is sleeping with melting ice…the constant, irregular drip and the line of bowls extending into the darkness was very special. I got up at 4am to place the sixth bowl – which was rather surreal…the building was unexpectedly warm at night and seven other cocooned bodies lay sleeping on Persian rugs. The bowl rang out as it was struck by the melt water, the ice was held infront of the dimly lit west window, with the rumble of the City outside – all watched by the small blue point of light of the Camcorder. Reminding me that I was not the only witness of the event in the night.
When the twelfth bowls was placed I was struck by the piece’s skeletal quality –a giant spine down the centre of the building, which people wandered up and down like a ladder.
So much richness. Philip Wells (Fire Poet) and Attab Haddad (Oud) played and proclaimed hallowed ground wonderfully on Friday evening. Hazel Bradley read a variety of readings: the story of the Chinese Rainmaker who created the space that allowed the longed for rain to fall, to the joyous and wonderful coming of ‘Spring’ to Narnia.
Night and Morning prayers with Taize chants at midnight marked the passing of the hours; the installation a participant in our liturgies.
We finished the event with a walk down to London Bridge to pour the melt water into the Thames. A most wondrous moment as the golden water was poured from one of the bowls over the parapet of the bridge - it caught the light, fell like a golden stream into the River and flowed with a distant sparkle out of sight into the dark. A lovely farewell...
I mentioned in my talks about the project being a transient community; an important part of which was the series of contemplatives who sat quietly and held the space for an hour at a time. And thanks to all those who came along and inhabited the space for a while, especially those who came back several times and sat or wandered for many hours.
If you would like to leave a comment you need to have/open a google mail email address, then click Follow to become a Follower. I look forward to hearing from you...
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Going down to the Thames
Going down to the Thames shore is an uncanny experience. We are used to looking down on the river from bridges, mainly at speed from the safety of trains and buses. Standing beside it one is aware of its size and power.
A bright cold afternoon - I made my way down to Walbrook Wharf where the waves crash-in on the rusting hulls of the refuse barges with a dull dark thump, and splash up the concrete steps disconcertingly.
Armed with a bucket and a peice of string I capture as much water as I can carry, and bring it home to boil....the things one does for art!
London being London no one batts an eye...the blessing of invisible eccentricity.
A bright cold afternoon - I made my way down to Walbrook Wharf where the waves crash-in on the rusting hulls of the refuse barges with a dull dark thump, and splash up the concrete steps disconcertingly.
Armed with a bucket and a peice of string I capture as much water as I can carry, and bring it home to boil....the things one does for art!
London being London no one batts an eye...the blessing of invisible eccentricity.
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