Words can’t express how marvellous it has been to receive a bundle of crisp well framed images of my performance piece for Fringe Arts Bath, Belongings show. Curator Nimmi Naidoo has done me truly proud in capturing these (and more) photographs of me channeling the performance space and “becoming exile” through unpacking two suitcases of carefully assembled objects and momentos into a tribute piece for Spanish Republicans exiled at the defeat of the Second Republic in 1939.
Once there I was all but oblivious of the wider environment and so it was especially revealing to see two observers looking into the tribute space from the other side of the window – from the outside on the pavement to 9 New Bond Street. Without any context they watch me ‘decant’ two long dead spiders transported from my studio in a jar. I won’t give their provenance or symbolism here but they have a deep significance to the project, which these two ladies could barely begin to guess. What must they have made of this act, knowing it to be art of some kind yet not knowing in the slightest what it was all about.
So I’m extremely grateful to Nimmi for the invitation to create this piece in a public space and for witnessing and documenting the event so beautifully. If I was aware of anything outside myself it was of Nimmi’s lens, alert and watchful. Nimmi I am so glad you were there.
