Watching ice melt on an unusually warm autumn evening.
Melting
Rencontre internationale d'art performance (RiAP) 2024
Alma, Québec, Canada
September 2024
Watching ice melt on an unusually warm autumn evening.
Assisting nature by attempting to turn a fallen tree branch into dirt.
Sitting under a young oak tree in the garden outside the cultural center, I invited people to talk with me about water, and about their experience of the recent drought.
Spending six hours in a derelict Victorian terrace house, blindfolded, examining the front room and whispering to its presences.
An inquiry into the history of the land that the Fine Arts Gallery of the University of Alberta occupies, assisted by gallery visitors.
This durational performance was designed to draw attention to the multitude of people who have occupied this land before us. We tend to focus on history that is within living memory, failing to remember the legions who have gone before. And yet what we know of the world today has been imprinted and altered by them.
From sunrise to sunset I read aloud an account of the 1986 meltdown at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. It provided an opportunity for conversations with the audience about related topics including the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, and nuclear power.
Building a house of cards, using a custom-made deck with images of current calamities and the politicians associated with them.
What do we neglect to pay attention to, as we rush through our days?
How many days have you been alive? How many of those days can you recall?
This performance was about what is left of our lives in the end, how we might assemble the fragments, and hopefully how we might make some kind of sense from it all.
What really will we leave behind?