“The ocean is in the cup…”

Common Ground Work, a performance art festival organized by Bbeyond Belfast
May 1 – May 4, 2024

Relection on Day 2, by Carron Little

This performance art festival was initiated by Alastair MacLennan and Brian Patterson traveling to China visiting Shanghai, Wuhan, and Chengdu in 2023. They established different relationships with performance art organizations and brought them to Belfast in May 2024 for an 11-day program starting with performances for four days, artist talks at Ulster University and then group performances in different cities in N. Ireland.

I unfortunately missed the first day of programming that included a profound performance by Lyu Desheng from Cement Park Art Project who is the Artistic Director of Yell Space since 2023. We had a wonderful conversation through a translator in the Botanical Gardens on Saturday May 3 after a chance encounter at Ulster Museum.

On Thursday May 2 there was an evening of performance art works starting at 6pm at the Redeemer Church. As I entered the building there was an arrow pointing into the building and I followed my nose discovering there were multiple church like spaces on each floor. The performances were in the upper space that was like an elevated cathedral like space.

Wioletta Ratajczak at Common Ground Work organized by Bbeyond Belfast,
photo credit Carron Little

Performance art by Wioletta Ratajczak

The first performance artwork had already begun and that deeply meditative collective experience that exists with an audience watching live art had entered the space. Wioletta Ratajczak focuses on ‘moment catchers’ from her everyday experience. This performance began several months ago as she prepared the materials in her studio methodically wrapping strips of card in black tape with magnets at each end to create different lengths of warp strips for this performance art work.

The artist chose to work in the middle of the vast space with black strips while wearing a black and white striped dress/tunic with black trousers. The black strips appeared to be magnetic (I later found out they were) and they were attached at each end. As Wioletta moved in this vast space the light from the circular stained-glass window moved in and out almost like a search light looking for the action.

At first there were three squares of black warp strips pointing towards the light of the window placed on the floor. These pieces were about thirty meters in length. In one of the squares there were eight warp lengths and in the other two squares I counted six. I’m not sure if this mattered or not and if the artist had made a conscious decision about this? She began to weave the weft of the first eight warped square and manipulated the ends of each side to connect. First she wore this form and I wondered if she would yield to the organic movement of the weave but she continued to correct its natural ways and form it into a square and then she attached all the magnetic ends on all four sides creating a very beautiful boat-like form. She then added two strands to each side creating handles that formed sculptural loops. Then she moved onto each square form on the floor repeating the process and humming as she did this. The sounds shifted in punctuation depending on which form she was focused on. Each square pertaining to their own melody. The space invited a resonating chora that continued to grow through the evening of work.

by Wioletta Ratajczak
Common Ground Work
an artist exchange organized by Bbeyond Belfast

photo credit Carron Little

Each square was transformed into its own three-dimensional form and at the end of this sequence she added all the forms to her body. One naturally formed a breast plate, the second a stomach, and the third referenced a bairn (baby). For me, these forms referenced a maternal being, the breasts, the pregnant belly and a baby in the arms. The physical manifestations of the body were emblematic of a process of growth within and beyond the body.

There was no pause or conclusion of what might happen next although there was a beautiful element of movement responding to these three sculptural forms. We were quickly taken to weaving number two that involved weaving two meter length black strips. There was roughly ten warps on this piece and she wove about two-thirds of the strips with weft (horizontal weaving). The sound had gone from this part and she seemed to be working in an anxious state, breathing heavily, almost gasping for air.

by Wioletta Ratajczak
Common Ground Work
an artist exchange organized by Bbeyond Belfast

photo credit Carron Little

The mood changed in this second part of the performance with the first half that engaged us in a slowing of the pace drawing us into this collective methodical process of weaving and entering into the curiosity of what might happen between the forms created and the movement of the artist’s body in connection with these intriguing forms. She expressed in the aftermath that she was concerned about the length of time her performance was taking but we were there with her in the slowness of time and as she intently wove the second piece. We were curious as to what might happen? This beautiful bird like form was created that she stepped into and stretched.

At the end of the performance the large woven piece became reminiscent of a body or a mummy and was laid on the floor along with the three smaller forms. It appeared to be an archeological burial site of sorts where things were laid in specific relation to each other. The mummified form was gently laid in the middle and two small forms placed at either side of the head and then one below on the right side facing the audience.

Chen Kexiong at Common Ground Work organized by Bbeyond Belfast,
photo credit Carron Little

Performance art by Chen Kexiong

I discovered in my meeting with Chen that he is also a poet and in his bio on the poster (below) it states that he understands the ‘interconnectedness of traditional disciplines’ of creative practice ‘with the art of living, that poetry is the art of living’. This deeply profound introduction takes practice and was echoed in the work. To view this work the audience were moved from a proscenium chair seating arrangement to a square seating arrangement in the round on three sides.

The artist sat on a wooden chair in the middle of the audience facing the light. He was wearing all black and pulled from his jacket pocket a carefully folded up group of white plastic bags. With slow careful detail he carefully created wings out of the handles of the bag to create an opening blowing into the center of the bag, filling it with air. He then with great care and detail concealed the opening and tied a knot in the air-filled bag. Then he took great care to form and shape the bag before dropping it randomly on the floor around him. In this moment the floor turned into a vast ocean and it reminded me of an article I’d recently read about Irish Performance Art in 1987. Alastair MacLennan was quoted in the article by Michael Tooby stating:

“that the ocean is really in the cup is an incontestable truth; but it is only so because the cup is absolutely non-existent. It is merely an experience of the infinite, having no permanence, liable to be shattered at any instant… Pleasure and pain become to him more real than the great ocean of which he is apart and where his home is; he perpetually knocks himself painfully against these walls where he feels, and his tiny self oscillates within his chosen prison…”
Article by Michael Tooby, The Regular Review of Live Art U.K. No 17, 1987

‘The ocean is really in the cup…’ is a great metaphor for this work where the sculpted air in each bag transforms the floor into an expansive ocean in time connected to every beating heart in the room. Through this simple action that was repeated until five white bags floated in the space of the oceanic floor of the Redeemer Church on Donegal St. Each breath of air precious and held in the moment was so sacred and appreciated.

by Chen Kexiong
Common Ground Work
organized by Bbeyond Belfast,
photo credit Carron Little

After five bags were carefully blown and sculpted he discovered another white plastic bag in his pocket. He placed this over his head with a gentle wiping action with his hands. This exchange of air, the simplicity of the action felt deeply significant for the artist living the work. There was one moment where the plastic bag filled with air deflated, and with careful attention he returned to refilling the same bag although it remained slightly deflated. This work resonated for our times having just lived through a global pandemic and reflecting how each breath is a sacred act of life giving force.

Mirror Huang at Common Ground Work organized by Bbeyond Belfast,
photo credit Carron Little

Performance art by Mirror Huang

The rearrangement of the seating of the audience was carefully arranged at the start of this performance. A select group of people were invited to go upstairs to a balcony space while the rest of the audience was arranged into two lines facing each other on each side of the Redeemer Church. The performance occured in the two layers of the space and began with Brian Patterson walking slowly through the space holding something wrapped in gold crinkled foil and green netting. He stood in-between the audience at the head of the church facing the balcony and sang abstract choral music. After a time a clarinet player entered the same space of the main hall tuning into the choral notes sang by Brian. The synchonized gentle music resonated in the space and occurred throughout the whole piece until the end of the intimate engagement that happened on the upper level pictured here in the photo above.

by Mirror Huang

Performance participant, Brian Patterson
Common Ground Work
organized by Bbeyond Belfast,
photo credit Carron Little

The audience members on the balcony, and they were given a snail to care for. From below we observed Mirror Huang enter the balcony space above with a green net over her body like a nest. She moved very slowly into the balcony space after some time after the music below began. She walked along the aisle in front of this huge abstract flora designed stained glass window that emitted beautiful colours of light into the place. Once she reached the center of the balcony she moved down and Wioletta was the first person to engage in the experience. She was cocooned into the green netting with the artist who placed the snail on her forehead. As they gazed into each other’s eyes Mirror held an audio recorder that amplified the sound of her breath in exchange with the participant’s breath. In reflection with Wioletta about her experience she talked about the breath becoming one and she had a deeply profound experience as the snail moved from her forehead around her face down to her cheek. This intimate experience was created with each person on the balcony slowly moving with the beautiful choral chanting by Brian and person playing the clarinet (pictured above).

There was a moment when one of the people on the balcony dropped one of the snails and it was like a snail had committed suicide and we were all deeply concerned about this snail. I went to check it out immediately after the performance and it was still alive crawling on the wooden floor. A group of Chinese artists carefully rescued it before anyone accidently stepped on it.

At the end of the performance after everyone on the balcony engaged in this experience with Mirror Huang, the artist curator and organizer, Brian Patterson lay what he was holding for the entire time on the stage of the church. It was not until this moment in the performance experience that I learnt what he was holding. It was a dead duck pictured below. Snails and ducks in China are edible and are part of their everyday lives and I was deeply moved by learning this surprise after the performance had finished. The concept of the experience being over was not. The performance lingered in my mind and body and in conversation with some of the people who experienced the intimate exchange of crawling snails and mutual exchange of breath on the balcony. I started to reconsider who were the performers in this piece was it the duck, or the snails along with the delegated performers. All these elements added a whole other layer of embodied exchange that enter the space of infinity. Was the snail the ocean in the cup or the smell of sitting close to the dead duck. In the artist statement Mirror Huang talks about creating a hypnotic dream-like experience in her performances and she certainly created for us that night in the Redeemer Church, an experience that lingers in the body.

by Mirror Huang

Performance participant, a Duck
Common Ground Work
organized by Bbeyond Belfast,
photo credit Carron Little

On this second evening of performances I loved how the elements of air and chora ran through all three works with Wioletta choral sounds, Chen blowing air into plastic bags and the exchange of breath in the cocoon netting that was amplified in these initmate experiences created by Mirror Huang. The chora, the air, the breath expanding into the ocean of the cup. It the ocean is the cup, the cup is the ocean expanding into the infinity of our planetary system, into the universe. The breath between us, within us, is this infinite space and how often do we care for it and reflect on its importance in our world? This evening of performances created space for deep reflection on the element of air.

Mirror Huang performed on Day 3 in public space with similar elements that I will share in the next blog post.

by Carron Little, May 11, 2024

Bibliography
Tooby, Michael: The Regular Review of Live Art U.K. No 17, 1987 quoting Alastair MacLennan talking about his performance art actuation Neither/Nor, 120 Hours (1987)

Poster design by Brian Patterson, Bbeyond Belfast. This includes the participating artist bios.