Movement for Mother and Child

in the show, "Domestically Spaced",
Gallery Space Station Sixty-Five, London, U.K.
by Sen McGlinn, Sonja van Kerkhoff & Tamatea, 2002.

performance by Tama and Sonja in London  
Photo: Rob Weinberg, U.K.

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.

  performance by Tama and Sonja in London
Photos: Vince de Cicco, 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-like steps along and beyond me.

performance by Tama and Sonja in London    

performance by Tama and Sonja in London    

performance by Tama and Sonja in London    

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.

performance by Tama and Sonja in London
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)

performance by Tama and Sonja in London

Photos: Rob Weinberg, U.K.      


"Prune and cut, prune and cut all deviations they distract."
"It's their world I thought... "

performance by Tama and Sonja in London
"I thought it was everyone's world

In a few years you can join in"

performance by Tama and Sonja in London  

"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."

"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, while walking towards me on the other side of the wall)



performance by Tama and Sonja in London
Photos: Rob Weinberg, U.K.


performance by Tama and Sonja in London
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.

performance by Tama and Sonja in London   


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 clapped. What a buzz!

performance and installation by Tama and Sonja in London   

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.

performance and installation by Tama and Sonja in London

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

performance and installation by Tama and Sonja in London

performance and installation by Tama and Sonja in London  

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.

performance and installation by Tama and Sonja in London

performance and installation by Tama and Sonja in London

Other work in the same exhibition

>> Sonja's c.v.    performances    Arranged by Medium      A tour via thumbnail images