the only real thing to do is the first piece in a series of recorded performances, an ongoing new body of work [untitled], that will take the form of seven video pieces. The work is centred around the theme of control (of bodies - female/animal) and experience of pain (internal and physical) and is set in Irish farm sites/rural environments.

​

The acquired knowledge of the history of the specific location and my intimate experience of the place prior and during my performance inspires the content of each piece. The common thread through the series is to depict a process of striving to break out and the psychological drama experienced within such process in each performance.

 

The number seven I use here as an archetype with which I refer to the Book of Genesis and the stage-theory of psychology of human development. The work also looks at the place women have occupied in patriarchal societies. Through placing the female body in the environment that is symbolic of biological process (growing crops, raising livestock) which its only purpose is harvesting or reproducing a biological means of production, an environment which historically was primarily associated with male labour the work creates dynamics between two opposite powers - receiving and inducing (control and pain).

 

For the only real thing to do I performed in the back yard of a vacant farm cottage in the countryside near Thomastown (Co. Kilkenny). After executing the performance, I worked on the sound composition where the voice over was inspired by a Buddhist meditation. This piece could be even regarded as a meditation on pain. It deliberately carries a variety of connotations some of which contemplates the history of the relationship of the Catholic Church to the (female) body and the role of women within the concept of religion.  

​

In this work the experience of the physical pain represents the painful course of maintaining a complete trust, a strong belief in attaining what has been longed for or promised. It is a metaphor for an emotional pain. The action depicts the process of striving, while the body is where the psychological drama takes place. The only real thing one can do is to accept the pain and bear the experience. The more one tries to avoid it the further away one is from its ending.