Rot Beige

This photograph taken by Christoph Neumann documents a rehearsal for "Seven" a new piece in development whilst here at Homebase Residency, Berlin. 

"Seven" was made in collaboration with Joseph Patricio in response to an invitation to make a performative work in the basement of the old Engelhardt brewery on Thulestrasse in Pankow.  The performance was shown during the month of performance art in Berlin.

 

The work  attempts to take the audience of one on a journey across a threshold and into the world of the collective unconscious.  

Selected by a guide in a sheep mask, seven people one at a time, are led through a dark tunnel, sweeping the way with a broom, sheepman crosses a darkened room leading to a smaller inner sanctum.    

A woman seated on a white chair at a white table holds a black book in her hand and invites her guest to be seated.  A candle lit encounter takes place, the sharing of stories perhaps real, perhaps imagined.  Stories of life and death are shared:  a woman who had been living with a dead body in her house for 21 years.  The discovery of a secret room and a very thin man with the key.   A visit to Einstein's laboratory which causes the body to break down into sub-atomic particles.  The ability to spin straw into gold,  the size and weight of the soul, and the sheep cafe were amongst the stories, shared and encountered in the dark basement.

The Alchemistic Cabaret

 In a tangle of red thread sheepwoman was seen last night at the alchemistic cabaret.

New Drawings at Homebase Lab, Berlin

I have started the first of a new series of drawings in my studio here at Homebase Lab. 

My drawing seeks to merge my night time dreaming adventures with my waking hours; encounters, conversations, impressions both visible and invisible from the experience of living communally with 16 other artists here in Berlin. 

The drawing is constantly shifting, like an animated facial expression.  Fellow resident artist Elena Dahl has started to photograph this process for me as the work shifts and changes.  I hope we will create an animation from this collaboration.  

I seem to be pointing to the "Sheep Cafe" a place I visited in a dream last April.  

Seven

I am working on a new site specific performance in collaboration with Joseph Patricio here at Homebase Lab, Pankow Berlin.  

This new work is devised for only one audience member at a time, and involves a journey, a crossing, an intimate encounter.  During the course of the conversation it is not clear if the stories are real or imagined. The piece aims to take the audience across a threshold into the subterranean world of the unconscious.  

The piece will be shown for the first time during an evening of performances, installations, and encounters this Tuesday 21st May as part of MPA Berlin.  

The performance is for a small audience of only seven people.  Will you be one of the lucky ones?

Swedish Wolf

In search of seeds for the garden, and for a bicycle, Diego and I wandered through the city of Berlin.  We followed our intuition and our feet and after several hours we found ourself in a Scandinavian quarter not far from our home at Homebase in Prenzlauerberg/Pankow.  On Kopenhagener Strasse we discovered a bicycle shop named "Wulf" and in the window was a sheep skull.  

On close inspection you can see that I am wearing my "swedish wolf" bag.

Homebase Residency, Berlin April 2013

Sheepwoman and I and settling in to our new home at Homebase, an international site specific residency exploring the notion of home, located in the offices of an old brewery in an area between Prenzlauerberg and Pankow, Berlin.  

My studio is one of 18 studios in the building with a corridor so long that I need a scooter to get to the bathroom.  My studio overlooks the garden where I will be working with Diego Zavana Aldana to plan and establish a kitchen garden, creating a relaxing social space and growing  fruit and vegetables for the kitchen, the weekly cafe and for the resident artist community and it's neighbours.

We started work in the garden today, digging over soil that had long been frozen during the winter months. We found some strawberry plants and potted them up for safe keeping, whilst we were serenaded by our neighbour Johnny Zabala on guitar, singing blues and Captain Beefheart songs.  

More pictures to follow.

Portrait of the artist as a Sheep

Thankyou to Agnieszka Badger for taking this portrait of Sheepwoman and I during a photoshoot arranged by Mim Saxl at Studio Blanco, Oxford.