practice-based research project

Evaluation

One of my initial touchstones was Yoko Ono’s wish tree installation at Tate Modern. Exhibition attendees were invited to write a wish on a white tag, and tie it to a tree. Anonymous wishes hung alongside one another – hope and desire intertwined. I wanted to use the written word, and the written wish, in my project – but allow freedom of thought with the retention of privacy. Initially I made seed paper for participants to write and bury their desires for change. Whilst successful, the practicalities of the burial necessitated lots of planting space, a logistical difficulty.  

One day on my desk I had a handwritten note. Accidentally, I spilled a glass of water over it – picking it up to see the ink seeping from the paper to stain the white surface. Words separated from the paper, creating a physical impact on the world around it and disrupting temporality. From this aesthetic manifestation, I experimented with paper and water – now using water soluble paper in my performance to melt away the written word. The unintentional became intentional.

Throughout my the process, experimentation has rooted my research – desire not always manifesting itself as expected, and accident providing more cohesive answers than imaginable. I set out to create a project that responded to the world around it, but ignited hope and promise for the future. By making work that continues to grow and evolve, my commitment to fluidity succeeds my innate desire to control. 

In terms of facilitating one-to-one performance, this idea came later in the process leaving less time to experiment with developing my approach – one that I would like to continue in future practice, specifically in combining the real with the performed. Conversations are unique, as are the wildflower seeds being sown. The changing state of the flower aligning with the changing nature of the world. Both asking what WE can do to intervene.

The act of shared ritual allows growth - successful blooming relying on the passing of time, individual contribution, and collective power. I enjoy the intimacy this form allows, but recognise the practical limits of ten-minute performances. In watching the one-to-one Garden of Adrian, I noted the performer-participant connection as a product of time – the performance being forty-five minutes in total.

Whilst social in form, this project has been deeply personal as well – a journey of embodying growth that has inspired reflection into my own past works. My second-year Group Practical Project centred around time capsules - how we can capture a moment in time and seal it, allowing the future to access the past. Sowing the Seeds has been my continued exploration of temporality. Through practice, the materiality of nature and impacts of humanity collide. The past, present, and future all in conversation with one another. As the ‘middle’ part of the project, my performance feeds into thematic thought around the structure of time as divided into three.