The blind man’s guide,
Meek and neglected thing, of no renown!
Soon will peep forth the primrose, ere it fades
Friends shall I have at dawn, blackbird and thrush
To rouse me, and a hundred warblers more!
from ‘The Recluse’ by William Wordsworth
http://littleonion.posterous.com/choreographed-by-…
Choreographed by Birdsong – from Barefoot Blindfold – Paul Conneally & Anne-Marie Culhane May 2012
After the first half-hour of sitting back to fruit tree blindfold barefoot arms hands and upper body choreographed by birdsong we remained in silence but now not blindfold each participant was invited to record some of how they felt, heard saw in and around the orchard area of Anne-Marie’s Loughborough University Fruit Route that we were in.
All took different approaches I returned to the technique I developed during my Spoil Heap Harvest piece for Transform Snibston. Making what I call ‘presaged images’. Taking mnaterials, plants, soil etc from the environment and pressing them into – onto paper.
I made two presages and I’ve one of them here. It is made by pressing plant materials picked from the orchard margin into the paper – bluebell flower nettle leaf buttercup. The other image I made is the imprint of grass etc from the bottom of my bare left foot.
Choreographed by Birds
Barefoot Blindfold took place on Friday the 18th May at 5am. Anne-Marie Culhane and I were joined by nine others.
From Anne-Marie ‘slow walking’ us into the recently planted orchard at the top of her new Fruit Route at Loughborough University to being blindfold barefoot to breakfast and discussion in the Landscaping Our Society garden shed the piece has produced much for us to reflect on beyond the experience.
It was good also to hear from artist Marion Michell that she too joined in from afar – if you want to do it yourself please do and share back with us your experiences.
Here is a link to Marion’s blog where you can find her thoughts on this and lots of other thoughts too!
We will share back more fully elements of Barefoot Blindfold shortly but in the meantime here is me Barefoot Blindfold being chorographed by birdsong. The video was shot by dancer Miriam Keye of Strandlooper.
Paul Conneally chorographed by birds during Barefoot Blindfold a piece concieved by Anne-Marie Culhane and Paul Conneally as part of Anne-Marie Culhanes wider Fruit Route work at Loughborough Unii.
Support for Fruit Routes – Barefoot Blindfold has been welcome and diverse.
Diverse is the word for instance we’ve had support from two strong women from very different fields of work Prof. Sue Thomas from De Montford Universoty and the upcoming female rap artiste Phreeda Sharp have both shown their support for Barefoot Blindfold on Twitter.
Sue Thomas’ current work TECHNOBIOPHILIA adresses issues around nature and cyberspace and was the subject of her recent Professorial Lecture at DMU ;The Future of Cyberspace – Technobiophilia
Meanshile possibly the fiercist of current young UK female rappers, Phreeda Sharp, has sent messages of good luck and a wondering of what a posse of Barefoot Blindfiold Bad Janes would be like on Twitter Phreeda @PHREEDASHARP said:
“It’d be pretty phucking cool if there were blindfolded barefoot Bad Janes there!”
Here’s Phreeda’s video ‘BAD JANE’:
PHREEDA SHARP – BAD JANE
Barefoot Blindfold
Well Anne-Marie spent the day yesterday making herself available for talks and iideas around Fruit Routes at Loughborough University as part of their Environmnet Day. Quite a few people signed up or at least told her that they were coming along at 5 am on Friday for our collaborative participative dawn chorus piece Barefoot Blindfold – we just hope the weather holds out – we do it whatever the weather!
http://littleonion.posterous.com/barefoot-blindfol…
Me, well I’ve been making blindfolds for ‘barefoot blindfold’ but also and excitingly spent time, as patt of my PCAS (PSHE & Citizenship Advisory Service) work, at an infnt school in Leicester planning a Keyhole Garden project and associated activities.
In terms of ‘memory foam’ gardens are linked ifor me with memory and memories. Within the wider culktural landsacpe too gatdens are often assocoated with memories and memorial gardens abound. The act of planting is always a hopeful thing a looking forward to positive growth and flowering, fruiting and that meories even the sad and painful might be planted and grow into the new and hopeful is a thoought sitting with me today as I recieved this picture from the daughter of a good friend of mine who died recently. It’s a plaque on a bench in memory of him by his family by the lake in Abbey Park Leicester. Think I’ll be heading down there to eat my lunch sometime soon.
Cultural Forager Paul Conneally is an Artist / Poet from Sheffield currently based in the East Midlands.
