RETURNING/ WORKING
a work- in-process live installation
2014 7-hour performance at 186 Carpenter with durational sound performance by Neil C. Jackson. Photography by David Barth Penn.
The landscape has its formation and as after all a play has to have its formation and be in relation one thing to the other thing and as the story is not the thing as any one is always telling something then the landscape is not moving but being always in relation, the trees to the hills the hills to the fields the trees to each other any piece of it to any sky and then any detail to any other detail; the story is only of importance if you like to tell or like to hear a story but the relation is there anyway - Gertrude Stein
Returning/Working is a live image that depicts a textured landscape of returning. It is a work-in-process, still being worked out and through one stitch, one mark, one word at a time. Over seven hours, a tableau recurs again and again, restores and refreshes around and around a small set of working gestures. The image of Returning/Working is a series of details that unfold in relation. Soft threads of whispered words merge with evolving sounds of drone. Fibers and tones pull across scents of lavender, locks of hair, found texts and remembered stories. The past and future reappear in syncopation through a tender working through, together. Stitch by stitch, note by note something coalesces, yet nothing happens. After all, the story is only of importance if you like to tell or like hear a story; it's yours to tell or to hear, if you like.