Meeting Inside and Outside the Body

Exploring the relationship of inside and outside (the body) through colour, movement, form, has long been an interest of myne.

In foundation art and design this materialised as paint flows during a massage - making visual the changing patterns of the massage and the changing topography of the body's muscles worked and relaxed. That progressed into 3d work with clay - a series of clay slabs worked into as massaging into the layered muscles of the back, revealing an anatomy, muscles, spine, from the clay responding to the hands responding to the envisioned (or re-membered) body flesh. And during my BA Hons in Fine Art, the exploration moved into experimental film (narrated from a Reiki-guided 'Alternative Reality' journey), sculptural installation and participatory performance with massage. Those alongside a series of personal drawings - of the colours, rhythms and forms perceived in the external surroundings and with inner contemplation - inside and outside the 'body' in one place at one time.

One of the reservations of my PhD (disappointment would be too heavy a word here) is that I was not able to make practice explicit to these inside / outside traces in the way I had hoped to, a year or so into the research. Those ideas have hovered in the background, waiting for the time to find a way out. And in the meantime I have moved on with other areas of my practice, including integration of the whole new (to me) branch of Clean. And interestingly it's through that branch that I've been able to make working practices that very tangibly share an exploration of inner and outer noticing, relationship, co-existence, harmony. Modelling Hunter Gatherer, and the colour grid activity that led me into last months retreat, are clearly connected with this process. Clean Touch, presented with Jeni Edge at the Clean Conference last weekend, is another example of this inside/outside body, self, environment (others) exploration. Another example moves on from the Living Voices project; I've been putting together two proposals for work with woods that bring this kind of inner/outer dialogue into the company of trees.

And just today an email from the ever-interesting WAN (walking artist network) list mentions a practice of walking with water - 'exploring fluid ecosystems of Argal Lake and the human body'.

So this seems a suitable place to start collecting references and links for other body/environment works.

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From WAN jisc-mail list 15/5/13:

FOOT-MOBILE

A FESTIVAL OF WALKING PERFORMANCE 

Argal Lake - Saturday 18 May 

Presented by students from the Theatre Programme at Falmouth University, directed by Misha Myers in partnership with the South West Lakes Trust.

Water Inside Out: a guided walk exploring fluid ecosystems of Argal Lake and the human body

12.30-13.00 and 15.30-16.00

Meeting point: East side of the dam at the bench by the road

LAGRA: A walking lecture exploring what’s on the other side of the planet from here

14.00-14.30

Meeting point: Main parking lot picnic area

The Ambulatory Cartography Project: a motionless walk and game of hide and seek

12.00-15.00 

Follow signs from the main parking area

The Argal Dog Appreciation Society: A dog fun day

8.30-12.00

Meeting point: Dog exercise area

Dog companions welcome, but not necessary

Ghosts of the Reservoir: a poem written in the landscape

11.00-3.00

Everywhere