Separation/ Connection Performance

This past weekend I did a collaborative performance with other Maine College of Art Alumni in Portland, ME. It was an intensive workshop with people traveling from all over the country to participate. The theme was Separation/ Connection, a very broad topic that we navigated by individually  discussing our personal ties to the subject.  After doing numerous exercises and learning more about each other we came to the decision to work together in one large group.

The culmination of our weekend efforts was an hour long, silent communion with each other. Using blue ribbon, we attempted to illustrate the forming of relationships and the disconnect within them. Visually it became a map of the way we communicate with one another, sometimes passively, other moments with violence.

To me this event held both touching moments of strength and endurance. I found the way we spoke silently by sewing one another together, and at times breaking that thread, to be very different to way we verbally communicate. Even our body language changed during the performance. By slowing down our movements, we became reflective of a far more deep rooted understanding of one another. Our basic functions were revealed, the way we grow and the way we regress. Nature and nurture were playing a funny game.