Movement for Mother and Child

in the show, "Domestically Spaced", London, U.K.
by Sen McGlinn, Sonja van Kerkhoff & Tamatea, 2002.

choose another month Tamatea and Sonja at the beginning
of the five minute performance,
July 12th, 2002.

As you can see, we had to move over the icing sugar (another artist's work) and there was also a briefcase in the way below me and around the corner there was a t.v.
 Photo: Rob Weinberg, U.K.

I think these 'things-in-the-way-of-a-mother' who moved along close to the images suited the piece.

Tama, who moved at a greater distance from the wall didn't have these obstacles.

First I started the metronoom.
Then I moved slowly,
stuttering the text

"I,   I,   I,   I  a m,
I  am,
Iambic, Iambic doubt,
Iambic doubting gait.."

(at that point I turned to face
the baby images)
Tama did his own thing of ballet steps along and beyond me.


 Photos: Vince de Cicco, U.K.
On the floor is the metronoom, ticking at about 40 times per second with next to a small wooden recorder.

I continued with: "This is a law of nature the strong survive", while gazing at the image and resting on the crutches.


I turned and moved while muttering, "no, no, no place, no place, it's no place, no one place."

I then turned to another image with the text: "Darwin had it right, but now...
now it seems that it is survival with the least amount of change."

Now I turned at the doorway with this text (which was the same text on the baby image at this point).


"Prune and cut,
prune and cut all deviations
they distract."



 Photos: Rob Weinberg, U.K.

       "it's their world
                                        I thought... "


"I thought it was everyone's world

in a few years you can join in


They yelled at me because
I was carrying a baby.

I was bad because he was not at home.

The world is hard,
cold
involved
and it's no place
no place for a baby."

Tama then stopped dancing, walking back to the metronoom to stop this. He picked up the wooden flute standing poised until I started saying the following:

"Go!"

(Tama started playing music, walking towards me on the other side of the wall)

 


Photos: Rob Weinberg, U.K.

"Go, said the bird,
for the leaves
were full of children

Hidden excitedly,
containing laughter

Go, go, go, said the bird,
humankind cannot bear
very much reality."

Tama stopped playing music and tip-toed behind me.

I whispered: "For the leaves were full of children."


Photo: Rob Weinberg, U.K.

(I looked at Tama saying slowly:)

"Seeing Red is for the simple.

Life is civilized now you know, we are no longer beasts of the field.

Decisions and revisions.

Let us go
and make our visit."

Tama repeated
"make our visit"

 while I put the crutches on the ground and picked up the piles of postcards.


We then walked through
the audience giving out
the postcards (each had
an image of the baby
with three different sets
of the texts),
gradually walking
towards the door.


I was amazed at the silence.
I had expected that people would start talking. Then they all clapped. What a buzz!

And it wasn't over yet!
I had to move the cloth because someone else would do a performance in that space. So I did the re-hanging during the opening and in a sense that was a performance too, but now more like the other performances also happening at the same time. People doing stuff over a longer period which the public stopped to look at before moving onto something else.


The Wrapping for a Marginal Citizen video was shown in kitchen as you can see here.


The 12 minute video with shots the washing line of baby images, the shots of the baby in the kitchen sink, etc looked good in the kitchen and with the line of the wrapping hung high around in the gallery space.



 


Other Works exhibited in this show


the medium		art by catagory

c.v.
last things first