In the Hole
performance in collaboration with Linda Duval
Saskatchewan, Canada
2017
In the Hole - Collaborative installation and performance with Linda Duval - in a hole
In the Hole was a short-term residency located in an earthen, 6 foot deep hole, located on the property of artist Linda Duval, on Treaty 6 in rural Saskatchewan, Canada.
Linda invited over 30 artists, to spend 6 hours a day with her, in un-conventional site for creative exploration. I spent 2 days 'In the Hole" with Linda, approaching the hole as a space of domestic investigation through meditative material exploration. Linda and I engaged with one-another and the hole itself through a collaborative and repetitive process of braiding cut strips of textiles. The initial thought was to create a braided rag-rug to line the bottom of the hole. This labour intensive process of braiding and stitching, had the somewhat unattainable goal of "domesticating the hole."
What we soon learnt, was that expectations of material process are all subject to the power of the elements. The hole was comprised of a 5 foot walkway circling a central mound of earth. The first day was spent battling wind and rain, which would whip and curl the thin strips of cloth to tatters, intertwining them with the thorny leaves and roots of the centre piece of the hole - a wild rosebush. We rolled with it, and let the wind be our collaborator - as dust and sand swirled around the rose's root system and into our eyes, ears and mouths.
Day 2 - we were met with fairer weather conditions, and we admired what the wind had done, in weaving threads into every possible nook and cranny. The process of domesticating the hole took a different turn, as we reacted to our surroundings, and the parameters of living, short-term, within an un-predictable, outdoor space. The residency culminated in sitting down for tea and biscuits in a makeshift tea-room, crafted by our labour.
This project considered: the domestic expectations of home making and place making as a female-bodied person; the use and re-use of textile-based materials in an accelerating ‘throw away’ society; tensions between the wild/raw/outdoors and the tame/polished/domestic; searching for a place of peace and a sense of home as a settler on treaty territory.
Linda invited over 30 artists, to spend 6 hours a day with her, in un-conventional site for creative exploration. I spent 2 days 'In the Hole" with Linda, approaching the hole as a space of domestic investigation through meditative material exploration. Linda and I engaged with one-another and the hole itself through a collaborative and repetitive process of braiding cut strips of textiles. The initial thought was to create a braided rag-rug to line the bottom of the hole. This labour intensive process of braiding and stitching, had the somewhat unattainable goal of "domesticating the hole."
What we soon learnt, was that expectations of material process are all subject to the power of the elements. The hole was comprised of a 5 foot walkway circling a central mound of earth. The first day was spent battling wind and rain, which would whip and curl the thin strips of cloth to tatters, intertwining them with the thorny leaves and roots of the centre piece of the hole - a wild rosebush. We rolled with it, and let the wind be our collaborator - as dust and sand swirled around the rose's root system and into our eyes, ears and mouths.
Day 2 - we were met with fairer weather conditions, and we admired what the wind had done, in weaving threads into every possible nook and cranny. The process of domesticating the hole took a different turn, as we reacted to our surroundings, and the parameters of living, short-term, within an un-predictable, outdoor space. The residency culminated in sitting down for tea and biscuits in a makeshift tea-room, crafted by our labour.
This project considered: the domestic expectations of home making and place making as a female-bodied person; the use and re-use of textile-based materials in an accelerating ‘throw away’ society; tensions between the wild/raw/outdoors and the tame/polished/domestic; searching for a place of peace and a sense of home as a settler on treaty territory.