Seeds and Bones / An Archaeology of me

Seeds and Bones/An archaeology of me uses a series of objects connected with my own family tree to layer personal stories with evolutionary history and current global concerns. It is an interactive performance project that explores many different modes of connecting with an audience:

Part meeting, part installation, part conversation, part performance, part knitting circle, part workshop, part dance, part lecture, part autopsy, part archaeological excavation, part birth and part funeral.

Objects that embody my family tree are installed, animated and re-imagined. These objects are the skeleton of the work. I excavate this skeleton through layers of personal history that are inextricable from a web of political, socio-cultural and global concerns:

Evolution, Motherhood, Descent,
Perpetuation, Adaptation & Transformation.
Sustainability (personally and ecologically),
Responsibility (and our ability to respond),
Time (geological and personal),
Choice (what do we do with our time).

These ideas are relevant at micro and macro scales, the personal is political, and global issues are made relevant to the individual.

The objects are installed on/around a number of trestle tables with a series of invitations for the audience. Invitations will range from solitary actions to possibilities for shared experience. The ‘performance’ emerges out of this through my own interaction with the objects and invitations. The work is both profound and insignificant, intimate and epic, tragic and funny.

This project has had a long gestation. It materialised in 2015 when I was expecting my second baby. The project developed, evolved and adapted with me during my third pregnancy in 2017. It continues to evolve.

Programmer Notes