Action and Consequence 2024

07 Mar 2024 : Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka Campus, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Performed for ART IS EVERYWHERE, Live Art Tour 9

The performance is part of the Colour Bleed series, where food colouring is mixed with water to stain a white ground through performance. The performance began with me walking up and down a nearby path dragging green glass 7UP bottles and plastic water bottles filled with red coloured water behind me on 3 metre long orange strings. These were attached to an orange plastic hosing belt around my waist. When I stopped I cut the strings with scissors and stood the bottles upright in a line as witnesses. Eight large screw-top glass jars which had food dye inside, were arranged around the pond ledge. I cut vegetables into chunks (a symbolic dismembering) and placed them in the jars, then filled them with water from the pond, revealing the colours, and sealed the lids. I carried the jars two at a time, one in a bucket and one in my hand, to the path where the bottles had been lined up, and arranged them in a line. I then unfolded 8 white cotton squares one by one, placed them beside a jar, and placed the jar in the centre. Returning down the line, I folded each square up to tie each of the opposite corners together like a Japanese Furoshiki wrapping cloth. The image of the 8 white-wrapped jars was for me like a row of funeral urns (of human ashes). Returning again to the end of the line, I then smashed each jar with a hammer through the cloth, causing the liquid contents to flow out but the glass and vegetable to remain contained within the tied cloth. Reaching the end of the line, I lifted groups of the standing bottles by the severed strings into the air to “witness the consequence of my action.” For me it was like forcing family and community to witness an execution. I then returned down the line a third time, untied the cloths on the jars one by one, and carried each bundle to a bin where it was emptied in order. Each stained cloth was pegged to a rope line suspended between two trees over the pathway.

Intention

Several of my works have referred to the Israel/Palestine conflicts between Jews and Arabs. The performance was a symbolic acting-out of genocide, which is generic. The bottles represented the children, families or community who witnessed executions as the glass jars were smashed. The jars were symbolic of the men, leaders or political figures who were executed. The stained cloths were hung up as warning and evidence. An action resulting in colour stained cloths producing an artwork of sorts, materiality in the form of a performance residue. The cloths also have the property of a shroud, stained with bodily fluids. The clues to this unstated subject-matter were in the military colours of my outfit and in the cold demeanour of my actions. It was not my intention that this symbolism should be able to be interpreted by the audience. It was one of the multiple layers of embedded meaning in the work.

Materials

8 glass jars with red lids (approx 3 litre volume) 10 x small green glass bottles (Mountain Dew) - empty 9 x 1.5 litre plastic water bottles with lids (partially filled with red coloured water) black plastic bucket, 1 litre plastic jug assorted liquid food colourings orange string line, orange plastic hose as a belt secured with 2 cable ties 16 x plastic clothes pegs , 15 metre cotton rope as line 8 x white cotton squares (112cm x 112cm) metal scissors, orange metal hammer chopping knife & green plastic chopping board assorted vegetables: carrots, beetroots, eggplants, pumpkin gourd khaki coloured costume: trousers, shirt, sandshoes