I am honoured to share the first images from the unfolding Traces collaboration between myself and Sarah Hickson. These are the tiniest taste of hundreds of images taken during the residency at Au Brana Cultural Centre, France, involving three intensive long rituals and many journeys into the woods. As time passes, we will share more, when we understand more fully what was birthed in those days. I present these glimpses alongside words from Sarah’s journal, that capture some sense of the alchemical magic emerging …
“In the woods I’m drawn to wounds, to rupture, to caverns, to cracks, to decay. But also to healing and transformation, renewal and growth.The delicacy, beauty and intricacy of what I find astonishes and thrills me. As above below. Textures. Scale. Perspective. Am I looking at something so tiny that ordinarily I would miss its story. Or am I observing a much larger universe.
We are making an environment which allows people to connect and to imagine; to weave their own narrative between the elements in the room – the symbols, objects, images, texts, sounds, light, smells and energy. We open up to all our senses and to an energy. An energy which is almost intangible at first, then grows in presence as we allow it to speak, to resonate, and envelop us. My images will sing with the room and the installation. They are inspired by this space and its energy. They add layers. Fragments to connect past and present. The room is in dialogue. Balanced.
The stream of water poured from height hits the blackened heart of the wood, sending out bright shards of light. Marisa pours again, slower this time. A white waterfall. She pours once more. An energetic starburst of incandescent pearls and dancing light trails emerge. Spirits from the fire. The black heart is oily, glossy, glistening under its layer of water.
Marisa’s body is imperceptible under the woven together fragments of paper, formed from the first draft of her book. Traces of her life. Now with added layers made from printed abstractions of photos I took earlier in the week. Shards of water hitting the charred remains of wood in the fire. Strands of Marisa’s wet hair, curled at the nape of her neck, caressing her collar bone. The jagged wound of a snapped tree trunk, raw and vulnerable. The gossamer net of a spider’s web, tangled in the woodland undergrowth. These images bringing a new visual perspective to the cloth of words.
It lies like a large white stain on the floor, this sculpture of paper, tapestry of words, thoughts and experiences. Traces of a life lived. A marked-out territory or map of some kind. Its edges are gently undulating. Marisa’s body slowly rises under it, like an ancient sea creature on the ocean floor. The paper curves and falls across her bent body. She emerges, a butterfly from its chrysalis. Her wings soar upwards. Marisa wraps herself in her words, shrouded in this paper veil.”