So I finally landed after my travels, yet feel I have arrived in another place.
Developing a second online blog space, I’ve begun to take on my neurodiversity and become a self advocate – part of a group of neurodiverse individuals who are trying to make a change in the way neurological variation is viewed and treated. The Other Side can be found here https://soniaboue.wordpress.com/about/
There’s a great overlap, between Barcelona in a Bag and The Other Side, and my conviction that art and neurodiversity intersect seriously and purposively in all manner of ways persists and develops as I move forward in my writing both here and there.
Meanwhile, back on planet art the reality of a group show begins to loom. Magdalen Road Studio http://www.magdalenroadstudios.com artists have been busy for months creating responses to Sutton Courtenay Abbey for a show entitled Unravelling Time http://www.theabbey.uk.com
I’ll be posting details very soon!
On learning about the historical link of Sutton Courtenay with the Spanish Civil War, I knew what my piece would be about. George Orwell, whose birth name was Eric Blair, and was buried almost anonymously in the graveyard at the Church of All Saints, Sutton Courtenay in 1950.
You can read about the history here:
http://suttoncourtenay.co.uk/?page_id=111
My idea for a piece called Retreat came quickly but it has continued to unfold, deepening and gathering layers.
The title, Retreat, is multi-layered referring strongly to the key function of the Abbey but also encompassing the powerful connection I feel with George Orwell, which is of course the Spanish Civil War. Retreat becomes in Spanish, retirada, and La Retirada is the term used for the retreat of half a million Spaniards at the fall of the Second Republic in 1939.
Within this one word there is a pleasing rr..repeat, and in my skittering brain I hear tea and treat rolled together, forming a perfect associative basis for my piece. I plan to take tea to George Orwell, as his first wife Eileen did when she visited him in Spain. I will take tea with him. I will also make a tribute for him. All three aspects of my action/ performance/ritual will essentially be one and the same.
My idea is not to work with the physical space of the Abbey and it’s environs as to work at one remove conceptually and historically – perhaps even limiting my piece to virtual spaces. I do know the component pieces that will make up this artwork but I’m going down to the wire in knowing how they’ll stack together and WHERE.
Creating a video piece is a real possibility I feel – but at the last minute a live performance in situ may emerge. This is both scary and exciting not knowing!
Last night the fragments of a poem came to me.
Retreat.
Final billet.
Sutton Courtenay,
A Retreat
(from life).
I will bring you strong tea,
To your own recipe.
In Spain,
Eileen brought you tea, chocolate and cigars.
I will feed you madeleines,
For remembrance.
I have a feeling that these words are my structure for the piece. We’ll see.
