Manchester Metroplitan University

I thought it would be interesting to discuss the work of some of my fellow students. It gives me an opportunity to talk to them in a bit more depth than there is often time to do and also shows the diversity of this course. Cathy Rounthwaite (e-mail : [email protected]) is doing interesting things with bones. Beginning with an engagement with folklore and tradition – a historical perspective on man’s interaction with the landscape, she has been exploring the ways in which so-called ‘traditional’ rituals such as morris dancing or the ‘Hoodening Horse’ (a ritual involving a wooden horse’s head) have been resurrected and reconstructed. These dances, rituals, songs are performed now by moderns for moderns, but, crucially perhaps, without an understanding of their original context and meanings. The rituals no longer have the power, or the place in our lives that they did. We do not now negotiate with nature in the same way – attempting to placate it with our observances and offerings. Cathy has examined these areas in her recent work, observing, organising and filming performances including an enjoyable maypole dance in which several of our year participated. For her degree show she has pursued this interest, turning to working with animal bones. These carry a real force, a kind of talismanic power as well as being beautiful and ambiguous objects. By transforming them both in substance and contextually Cathy is exploring the interplay between the object and its environment. They become something other – what are they ? Bone or cast ? Plastic or plaster ? They are beautiful but grotesque – we recognise the origins of these strange assemblages and are made uneasy by that recognition, by objects divorced from their original context and their very function. This ‘decontextualisation’ is at the heart of what Cathy is addressing. In a sense too she is literally showing us the bones of the rituals – meaning stripped away so all we have left is the structure. But they do retain a gloss both literally and metaphorically – an aesthetic quality which has a power of its own. Inevitably too they carry intimations of mortality – we are ultimately a collection of bones. Do we identify with them ? What do they say about ourselves and our own place in the world ? So I think Cathy’s work is full of interest and raises lots of fascinating questions – its thoroughly intriguing. She is working now on constructing and assembling her pieces; their form and placing will be really important so that’s something she is resolving in the run up to the degree show.