Skin of the Earth

Working with a practice of trance-based inquiry I enter a ritual process of place-based co-inquiry between human and more-than-human realms. I hold the intention of crossing boundaries in a performative sacred act of co-emergence with and in the environment; sometimes a natural environment and sometimes a human-made environment. I invite an oracular voice into the creative process. Historically oracles (often females) were present across cultures, performing as mediators of the divine. They offered utterances, often ambiguous and obscure to leaders and the community.

Based on the material collected from my recorded spoken trance, utterances, photography and video footage I begin a performative poetic process of transforming the trance experience into a poetic story. I consider these video collages to be matrixial mediators, offering those willing, to enter a portal into anOther realm as well as into their own bodies. I offer the walking of the labyrinth, a feminine architectural space as an initial matrixial mediator in the installation. It is an invitation to step out of the ordinary world, out of the dominant phallic world and into an intentional sacred space of being with oneself as well as with labyrinth walkers who have traveled and will travel the same path.  

My work is grounded in the theory of Matrixial borderspaces as articulated and painted by Bracha L. Ettinger. I began entering trances and collecting material for this series at international locations beginning in 2015. The project has become a slow and gentle process of copoiesis with  the inquiry unfolding through artworkings in-with place, poetic and writing inquiry.

Locations of screenings and installations to date include:

                         Canada: Courtenay, Squamish, Vancouver, Victoria, BC: Calgary, Banff, AB: Thunderbay, ON
                         United States: Carbondale, Il; Washington, DC, Boone NC, 
                         Europe & Africa: London, UK; Alexandria, Egypt; Istanbul, Turkey; Berlin, Germany; Paris, France, Rome, Italy

Scroll down to the end to see a completed essay and video and photos and video clips from the first installation of some of the artworkings at the Banff Centre for the Arts BAiR Artist Residency.

                            Fallen Tree Time - video still

                            View Video at LAIR Galleries 

Installation I
Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR), October 2017