She. Sean.
So. So.
First, the rhetoric not so to day.
For Oshun D'Haiti. I sent her on.
Embody beauty, dignity. And rope, uh, peacocke or incarnate, uh.
So, yes, I hear her calling, I answer, yes, Cindy is Cindy.
On waking dewdrops open gifted sites.
Rising a gifting suites, sold gifting, most precious, most fecundity has.
Each day I rise, each precious moment watching.
Being in yet watching, immersed in sanctuary, held Saturday in rising.
For each day bodes well. For life, a new life, a renewed life, new birthing.
Life, new birthing for she comes Kalkat, this be the first blush?
Gliding her smile belies voyages, long run, said her testimony.
Oh, but of broken wing recovered like Phoenix, she'll be rising advanced sidestep this reveal no one to move,
no sly side in the who she comes raining Sottile.
She'd be sensing horizons blue inviting. Like Phoenix, she comes rising.
Imbibing, sweet honey. Stirring fecundity rocks, she sobs, Aria dreams, she thread's love poems, she notion's belonging shoreline's sensing anchor.
I see molten ashes tumbling, rises like Phoenix, possibility cascading soft facades, takechi fluttering on the water's edge.
So. Can I truly offer me.
Less expecting secret wounds, B.C.
Exposing in the prima matter materia sinew channels to solar chamber.
I tried to find. Newborn, naked, holding, sweet sensory.
Celestial revelry tenderly crafted on the moon and its.
Magically trace through dream flight gilded offerings to encounter beloved.
To encounter beloved as in life and being.
Vitally invested deep within be akin, feeling like dancing over hot coals, soon jumping river deep in the in your gifting.
For foibles, then them nowhere needs them be stitched, Creed's honouring fidelity to life's tapestry for less such topology I'd be busting.
Wanting emotion, red relief for foibles, strengthen footholds on earth walls to eternity and.
Foibles make human. Make for sweet meanders through loves poppy fields to veritable embrace.
Oh, yes, I believe. Oh, yes, I believe I believe I can truly.
Oh, yes, of all. Of.
So. So.
Incense, smokes, heats, barely writes music or UPB.
Sahar. Oh, how sweet it is, huh?
How sweet it is. A rising incantation.
As moon sets, dawn breaks Insight's new day unfolding, how sweet she be in moments blossoming dream states to Earth Plane being.
Now to capture joy, break essence, to hold her, to carry her front and centre just, oh, blossoming.
That cherished Wandera, be the Gauntlett, be the Clarion, be the imbibing foshee on the waking Zeb presents it be palpable romancing.
Oh. For footsteps to virgin territories, call for all the vigilantes, all the eco vision, all day, 20 20 in the moulding to undulating said.
Life, river beings, oh, how sweet she be, the cherished moments owe that to the calling.
Oh, how. How sweet it is.
Waste beads, serenades. For it requires a certain gaits.
To carry dignity intended to carry femininity, rolling waves into honey ravines across covid, wasted and hit.
All roads lead, they say it is in the curl of your lips.
Initiate the swing of your hips and show them girls.
So the, um. Roll those hips in that certain gates beat songs crafted through colour style and ch'ing generations invested from Chic to see.
Sweet fecundity is your prerogative. To be all woman, May says, show them girls.
So the four, as you walk,
can weigh in and you can weigh in and can weigh in and feel the power of your being from a single
[INAUDIBLE] to cascade Harmony's beaded waist and churning your hips for it takes a certain feline gates.
Celebrates your rolling hills, Carrie, your serenade, there's no space for bashful brominated, this place is yours, Miss Claymates.
Work it, girl, cause you hold the power. It only takes one cheek.
How I arrested you have them alert, ready for you,
but it's pretty hot and and you hold the reins because it's sweet like that may say, Oh, fade to black.
Yes, but the. Venus sensate.
Celebrate your venus' sensate. Hold her hold her hold as you walk, express her in your talk.
Uh, uh, hold her in your gaze.
How far she is yours to behold, offer her to the world, they are waiting, they are one thing,
my goddess, this is no time to just come make manifest, hold her bosom close, take strides.
Unfurl your Venus Sensorites.
And for she loves you well, she loves you well.
Hmmm, this cabinet of curiosities.
What to call it, barely. Stomached.
Nature, hmm, detached colony's, disembodied, gaily coloured flowers adorn this cabinet of curiosities.
In tempo laced heart rhythm, she rises. She falls, she rises, she falls in temple place or skis, and she rises,
she falls confidence and now holds Venus Gates because she rises and she falls.
Hmmm, sweet melody, rugged rhythm, divine bejewelled sensorium, she rises and she falls, you know, for sake we.
This cabinet of curiosities breathe deeply, exhale m brace, she barely stomach hmm,
that cavity she your belly stomach sweet sanctuary, the enigmatic cabinet of curiosities.
Mobile museum, she holds Varity Enrobed as she comes folded, fleshy mine, she comes just fiercely feminine around its soft folds,
its mama warrior not tendrils are caving nine months incubating life form so blessed.
She mobile sanctuary holds. Verrity.
And roved she comes, Foldit, fleshy, sensually, embracing me.
First rhetoric. Now, so today and I saw today.
No. So. Oh.
Flower me friend, the call to the flowering is a beauteous thing not to sense, just to.
Since her. Deeply evolving in the flowering.
A call to encounter this, a call to rest next on Petzold Bed, find release in the weave of new narratives, threatening matriarchs such as.
Woman siren in velvet, red beheld in delicate lace caress into a cocoon called desire.
Dismantle ancient imagery, ignites Picasso emotional memory, evoke a vision fiction as reverie evoke desire me say, hold up, hold down this.
Desire a key colour in the tapestry of free desire desires, I come to me,
I flower me free, poised, open, released I as rose petals unfurling suspended in slow,
feel enticed in the free flow in the flowering essence of me, like circling honey bees, diving for the honey pot, silver tongued with lyrics.
And yes, they seek to possess me. Oh reflections of the flowering in me for this is no fluttering.
For as I flower me free, desiring and being desired is a constant state of me.
Poised and flowering mode, blossom, sweet, sanctified, I emerge at will volition to pursue desire,
pursued the fire, activate that which lies cause sensual in sinew.
Nurture or nature, the long held debate. I sit, I observe, I sensate for those women.
They run with the wolves smile, smiling,
then knowing they know their fortune wrapped around treasure trove for fecundity, fecundity wrapped in similarly.
The ability to craft the notion of free stories of the flowering, the blossoming to free liberation, no hardened arts of protest,
no pistol whipping shapes and fires, this liberty so often self denied, is a call to dwell in self to behold.
Yes, to be held, desiring and being desired is a constant state of me.
I simply be flower me free.
The. For the matriarchs, them say.
Oh, Miss Demetriades then said.
Oh. Keep the fire burning for smouldering embers, they signal danger, may say keep the fire burning.
It makes of them, they said it made me ask them then say, keep the firemen.
That's the rhetoric, not so to the not so, so, so so they so they use the rhetoric.
First, the rhetoric says.
Restaurants are now sold to the.
OK. Thank you all again for coming to this.
Slightly alternative instalment of the great writers inspired home series.
I think it's safe to say that the St. Luke's Chapel hasn't seen or experienced something quite like a performance of yours.
And thank you very much for coming and sharing with us.
Thank you. Yeah. What why?
We invited Diane to come and join join our series, along with more sort of traditional,
you know, bound book writing authors is that literature is varied and vast.
And the ways that we engage with poetry in this case might be very different if we
were sitting alone at home reading a book or reading a poem printed on a page,
or if we're in a venue like this with other people sitting in a circle listening to somebody performing.
So I think my first question to you, Diane, is how do you see the relationship between the text of your poems and the performance?
And what does it mean to perform the poems? Are they alive in performance or are they alive on the page?
Or is there are they different kinds of lives within like say good evening, everyone.
Thank you. Thank you for your audience. It was a pleasure to perform for you.
The question to break it down for me again, please.
The relationship between the text of your partner's. Yes. And the performance of the.
When I see my poetry written or even when it's coming to me, you know, usually it just comes out like this.
When I'm off the line, I may be moved by an emotion, a question that I'm asking myself.
Maybe I just wake up with often I will wake up and actually parents will just come out and I know that I will read it and experience the poem one way.
So I have a poem, for example, which I didn't perform tonight called Piercing Peace.
So piercing as in pieces and peace as in peace p a, c, e.
Now, if you were to just hear that, you may interpret that differently.
So there's definitely a difference between reading it and even hearing it, I think,
because obviously when you're hearing it say you weren't seeing me physically, you would hear intonation, you'd hear energy.
And every time I perform them, they're different depending on the context. You know, it was really hot in here today.
You know, it's a very warm atmosphere. The relationship between the poems and performing them for me brings another dimension of physicality,
of enlightenments enables me the opportunity to.
The process, if I can describe it, is I really internalise what it is that I'm feeling and I move from the emotion and that then informs my movements.
This particular piece is again quite different because I might generally recite in my movements always within my recital.
That's just how I perform.
Working with the sculptors put in another dimension again, because, you know, there was a relationship between what these sculptures represent.
So without wishing to pre-empt what you may be asking, just to add another layer, you know,
when you have objects in the piece that I had around my head and the drum as well, you know, we made a choice just to use a singular term.
That in itself is a language and it's a.
There's a rapport between the music, the way in which I drop my movements and the words and the sense which I'm trying to convey.
So it becomes quite a complex into a relationship and quite a dynamic one that I see.
You know, if I have to look at an image would move like this. Mm hmm.
But for me, if I was to say in one word, what would that be? For me, it's about enrichment.
It enriches the offering. Mm hmm.
And the poems or the offering? Yes. Well, for me.
For me, the entire thing is the offer. Yes. From the minute you step in, that's the offer that was absolutely needed for you,
because I was going to ask you about the sculptures and I was going to ask you about the vacation as well.
But I think that you've summed all that up. So then another aspect of performance, I guess, is the presence of an audience.
Yes. And so what in your mind is the role of the audience in the work in this kind of setting?
The title of this work is First The Rhetoric, Not so today, so not so today in West Africa.
You'll hear it in English speaking West African countries. You'll hear it. It's a patchwork.
It's kind of slide which seeks for an affirmation of something that maybe we're experiencing or we've witnessed.
So it's a call to bear witness.
That, for me, is where I've put it, so today on the end of that, and for me that's the relationship with the audience, is to bear witness.
But at the same time, you know, I sense energy coming from people in some performances which are very intimate,
could be a very different setting when it's dark, you know, the the daylight makes a difference.
Sometimes I really come very close and really get into your personal space.
If I feel that the that intimacy, that level of intimacy is what the offering requires for me,
the audience are really integral part of life performance. And as an artist, I describe myself as a multisensory artist.
I like to work on different levels. If I was able to burn incense in here, we would have had incense burning.
You know, the other factor for me is very important. Um, the audience for me provides another canvas on which I can recreate the offering.
And for me as an artist, as a writer, whether I'm painting, whether it's a poem that I'm offering,
I believe the act of creation is not complete until I'm able to engage with an audience, you know,
and it's such a beautiful thing to have a setting like this where, you know, we're able to engage hopefully at some point later on today,
but also have feedback and enter into some kind of dialogue around the piece.
What I'm presenting are provocations that are its future thoughts, its.
For me. Some kind of reverie on some level and to come out of dreamspace and to bring it to human beings who
have beating hearts and emotions and I can read faces and I can sense energy as I'm performing,
takes it into another dimension. Again, it's enrichments. So what you're suggesting is that.
Well, let me rephrase that. Um, just to prove you on this, how much how much do you have a potential audience in mind as you're creating,
as you're rehearsing, as you're sort of workshopping these pieces?
I was conscious in this piece that my poetry is quite dense in the imagery that I use in the just in one verse, you know, there's a lot going on.
And so I created this space. As a kind of opportunity for exhale, just to kind of like ease back a little,
although there were still things going on, you know, there was a lot to process and.
I was very conscious as I was choreographing this piece and also the rhythms with the drums, my own body movements,
some of which are improvised, you know, my practise is to always leave space for improvisation.
I always want to be able to have that space to just flow and jump if I want to jump.
So I'm very conscious when I'm crafting a piece that is to be performed when I write.
However, the fidelity to the inspiration for me is paramount and primordial, so I will never censor what comes.
As an artist, again, painting for me is similar, I will offer what comes because for me it's so deep.
It's a relationship between my soul and myself as a vessel to bring this offering to the world.
And so I do not feel it's necessary to. Since sometimes I read back and I might think, oh,
and sometimes words come and they don't make sense to me in the time, but I've just decided when it comes, it comes.
I write it down and I have to trust that that is what it's supposed to be.
OK, well, I mean, I could I could ask you many more questions, but I'd like to open it up to the audience now and please,
do you have any questions for Diane about her process, about the performance?
Because this is such a difficult case, so much gets lost up here.
I'm going to be annoying and and ask you to speak. I thank you, Diane.
I would really looking forward to seeing you. And I finally was able.
Thank you. I wanted to ask about the roses.
I thought that added such an amazing dimension to the to the experience and especially because of what roses do physiologically
and and just the idea of this whole olfactory dimension that one doesn't get with with the great majority of performances.
And that was wonderful. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Your question you asked me, why did I select the roses? I worked with roses and particularly dead roses.
Um, I do collages with rose petals, and I'm always struck.
By the. Tenacity of the leaves, these are crushed rose petals.
When I work, let's say in class and I'm working with glue, so you've got a rose petal that has dried.
So I will always dry. I love roses just as general. I'll always try them.
And that's that in itself is quite a ritualistic process. I'm a very ritualistic artist, you know, and person just in myself.
And for me, working with rose petals began as a soliloquy on fragility.
And this idea that, yes, you may cut the rose from the garden or buy it fresh cut roses, they will last for a week or however long they last.
And then what happened? And that, to me, speaks of the resilience.
Of. Womanhood. The core themes that I embrace in my work and what I'm presenting in this work first or rhetoric.
Exploring her story somehow. Fragmented from the rhetoric, the grand narratives that encircle us.
The roses for me present and you will have heard in the poetry as well, this is soft, fragile, yet resilient space.
My work is characterised by what I call the three C's communion.
Connexion and cooperation. So for me, for those who did receive the rose petals in their hand,
it was for me an opportunity to connect with you and not perform to you, but to bring you into the space.
So that you also bear witness and you're part of this co creation, that was the inspiration for me.
Thank you. I have another question. Hi, thank you, that was really so not anything I've done before.
You so much. There's a lot of artistic layers here. Did the words always come first or do you sometimes, you know, look at the sculpture and think of,
you know, words that work with the sculpture or the music, does the music sometimes come first?
Is there no specific order?
It's about flow for me. Life is about flow. So you see the never any straight lines in anything that I do.
Um, it's about flow. Often with the poetry, it will.
My writing moments are the most potent for me, and that's generally when I get my flow of poetry.
If I'm this particular series of sculptures came from a residency that I did in Dakar, Senegal, almost three years ago now.
And we were exploring. Women, the family, the free, the liberated woman.
Um, in the context of women migration and development, that's what the core theme of the residency was and, um.
It was through dialogue with other artists, so the whole idea is that we'd have these conversations, we're working.
Everybody had their own particular art, so artistic form.
So I was working with another sculptor who works with iron and metal, for example, and would wake up for whatever time,
you know, artists, you know, ten o'clock they would work through the night either.
And we just start these conversations, which will go on for days and definitely the.
Notes or my contribution or the responses through those dialogues informed these pieces.
Or I might offer a poem and then we start that way.
So, as I said, there's no strict one, two, three.
It's all about flu for me. Thank you.
OK, thank you very much. That's wonderful. Thank you.
I've got a lot of questions which will probably make themselves very easily, but I just follow on from that one.
I get the point about flow, but there's a point where, you know, your drums playing and the performance have to be put together in some sense.
Um, do you read the text first and then think this is the way to do it?
Or, you know, you want to answer that because it's a very beautifully fitted together.
So if that happens by serendipity, by feeling, as it were, that's a very beautiful thing, but it's a very beautiful thing anyway.
Maybe you had done some routines first and worked out how to do it.
Thank you for that. And we're grateful that you enjoyed it, um, well, it's a relationship between the two of us.
We all come from similar backgrounds, and when I first had to read the poems,
the way the music was constructed was that I asked her to read the poems.
And then here comes the word again. I went with the flow of what the poems were about, and then I get the inspiration to put the drum beat together,
and then we test it out to see whether it actually works with it.
We spent copious amounts of hours to produce this, you know, and there's all sorts of various things going on.
I mean, there's things that could have been, you know, sort of like included in but just time did not permit for that to happen.
So what we do is when we get together, she, you know,
ask her to read me the poems and sometimes I go back and listen to it back and then I get inspired to put it beat the drum beat together,
and then we test it out to see how it works together. Thank you.
Within that, though, there's still, as I said earlier, the space for improvisation and yeah, so so again, for me, it's flow.
Yeah, thank you. And I have another question go for it.
Tell me about your your language use in your poetry.
Tell me what the the the not the meaning of the word, but but using.
What does that mean for you in your poetry? What does it do? So when I say Miss said the three, them say.
And he offers what is that how do you read that? What does it mean for you?
I to ask my mom is sitting there because she knows the three of them say.
So what does it mean for me, Tatsuo? It's part of my makeup.
When people ask me where I'm from being the poet that I am. This is how I respond, I say I am of Caribbean parentage.
Of African heritage and the skin that I gifted in.
Is offered to you. As the Urban Institute.
So for me, that's what it boils down to. Patala, by its very nature, my interpretation is that some kind of up, some kind of melon's.
So my mother is of Jamaican origin, my father is of Vincent and Origin, I spent most of my life in Africa in different parts.
It's a real Mellons going on. There are I never set out to write a poem in patois, but there are some times when the flow,
the emphasis for me is communicated more strongly with a pathway expression.
Those are words that I make up, like the rhetoric. You know, it just came to me was like, actually, yes, that's it.
And when I say the skin that I am gifted in,
I see it as a real gift because a lot of these questions also about identity, you know, and transnational.
Identity expression, living in diaspora spaces and in fact, the reason why it's such a pleasure,
thank you, Erica and Erica, for including me in this project is that we're exploring British writing.
So for me, that was a bit of a, oh, OK. Is my writing British?
For a long time in my life, I rejected that notion that I could be a British writer, but evidently it's a part of me.
And so the reason why I constructed the poem to respond to anybody who asked me where I was from, if I said I'm born in Oxford, which I was.
You know, when people ask that question, I mean, so many things,
but it became quite a sore point for me at some point in my life because I found that people just wanted to catch you.
Oh, you're born in Oxford. OK, good. And I just did not tell my story at all.
So this question of indigeneity and the fact that I believe we all have the opportunity to construct.
This sense of what it means to belong, to be indigenous,
to be a part of a society culturally through my cultural expression, is really a core part of my offering.
Whatever my work, I had to come to a place in my own life.
I always work from an embodied space. You my own experiences. I had to come to a point in my own life where.
My cultural expression I had to put front and centre.
So as opposed to wanting to assimilate to I have to just accept and recognise and actually embrace when I was able to embrace it and say,
you are this melon's of all these different cultures, I saw it as a gift.
And that is how I offer, you know,
everything from head to toe that I am and where I am able to present my works and share them as offerings for that conversation to happen.
You know, because in this world where the other.
Seems to be such a pertinent discussion and it's causing so much strife and war and pain.
Today, this question of the other. I believe is such a rich tapestry.
That we can all contribute to and be part of. So a core part of my offering, whatever it is, is to say, come, let's weave together you,
bring yours, I bring mine, and let's see what things we can create.
And it doesn't always have to be beautiful. I mean, I dwell in beauty. That's true.
Um, it's very difficult for me to write poems about pain and torture.
That's just not the place I sit in. Um, if it comes.
Fair enough. But to date, that's just not the Speyside. Well, you know, I see myself as a Jurema.
I see myself as a realist.
Um, it's not a utopian situation for me at all, I have seen and I've experienced that when I bring the core of myself forward.
Generally, I can find a connexion with others. On some level, in some way.
And from there, we can build. Do we have any more questions?
I'm very curious about your sculptures. They're so symbolic, I find, and I can I have my own imaginations and things,
they could be which I have, which probably all of us have in a way and have different ideas.
But could you say a bit more about that or do you want that to remind you asking what is the very substantive question to explain their work?
Um, I'd be interested to hear maybe how you're receiving them.
What is your imagination around these? Um.
Well, I've been I've just recently been to New Zealand, there's a stretch on a beach in New Zealand where you have stones and this form.
And Mauriac, they're called the Mauriac Borders, and they're a bit bigger than this, and the Maremmas, they were baskets.
So baskets that the First Fleet or the first not the first fleet, the the the Maori who first came to New Zealand brought.
So I was thinking of basket's you were talking about gifts, um, exchanges of things.
But it's also I like the round form but also that it's unfinished anyway.
I love the colours. Thank you.
I'd love to hear some others. I wasn't I wasn't sure I was hearing you quite well, so I might be repeating what you said, but to me,
they symbolise birth because of those creatures that are, I assume, crawling out of the cracked egg.
Wow. Beautiful. Thank you. I was thinking myself of seeds of the coconuts.
You know, it floats great distances over the ocean and then germinates its plants on distant shores.
Mm. You know, I was thinking something very similar about the eggs, but also kind of in a sort of process of growth.
You've got these things coming off and you talking about fecundity and fertility.
And, yeah, it was really like, thank you. I also want to go with Terrance's do you reading.
OK, I just wanted to say that for me, the husks through, you know, we talked about fruit seeds, but the both ends of that cycle.
And when you put one on your head, it became a kind of scowl.
A sign of. Honeymoon period aside, so we can do a lot of things with that shape.
It's very fluid and I think fluidity as well as flow is part of the way you.
So if you take a defined shape that has some possibilities but not infinite possibilities, and then you fly with that.
I love this. See, this is the beauty of having this kind of dialogue space.
I often as a consumer, let's say I go to excuse me and say I go to the theatre,
etc. I often want to speak with the person who wrote the play or some of the actors,
etc. So it's a really beautiful space that's being created and it's lovely, always wonderful to be able to hear how people perceive the work.
I intentionally presented this as unfinished works and I could equally decide that they are finished,
you know, um, but for me, I created them as unfinished works because I see this as a journey.
So three years ago, I created these. I haven't done much too much with them.
I've since that time, some of them have had some additional wire pieces put on the edges, for example, here.
They all have things of seven themes I work in with numbers, I work with seven,
and generally I work with one, three or seven with everything that I do.
For various reasons, they each have a theme. I want to leave your images in your imagination and let it unfold in your subconscious as you leave here,
but I'll just say that the inspiration for this collection is part of a bigger work called the Venus Sensorium.
And this is where I'm exploring. It's a five year exploration for me, where I'm exploring love as a spiritual practise.
And so this is one movement in that work. I'm just thinking how much more I should say I.
Was inspired to. Come to this work.
When I heard how many women I was watching some programme randomly very late, many years ago, um.
The programme fussin. And I think it was this fashion, somebody living in South Africa.
Yes, I was living in South Africa at the time and I had BBC something on whatever and.
There was a time when he goes on the streets and interviews people, all these vox pops.
And he was asking women which part of themselves they disliked the most.
And it shocked me. When every person, every woman who was speaking to women said mycetoma, every single one of them.
And I found the. Traumatising.
This was every woman, every shape, every size you can imagine. Everyone said, oh, I hate that we're using such extreme language.
And that inspired me at that point to explore, you know, what is this how could we be so in a collective sense,
so dislocated and so cut off from our centre of creation, our fecundity?
And that really sparked off. I mean, that had to be more than five years ago, I'd say close to 10.
And that's part of this idea of love as a spiritual practise. And, you know, my focus on women and explorations of.
A reshaping of reimagining. So what I'm proposing here, can we reimagine?
Ourselves within the narrative and maybe external to the narrative, as we gaze at the grand narratives of what it is to be a woman.
This is also interlinked with my my work as a healer. You know, I spent many years in different parts of Africa.
It was almost like an initiation process where I sat with grandmothers, I sat with women in villages, in communities who are tasked with.
Cultivating a sense of femininity. Amongst school children.
Through rites of passage, and so a lot of my work is also concerning rites of passage and, um.
They would always speak to me about this innate power that sits within women and men.
And it was such a different perspective. It thrilled me.
It opened up this Fecundity River for me, you know, and I floated it ever since.
And, you know, I really see myself as an emissary to bring this kind of.
Work forward and this narrative, so I will explain exactly what each piece means and this work is still unfolding.
So I aim to take this to a residency again and really spend a month just working on it.
And everything that I'm hearing from you and other audiences where I will share this work, I'll put back into it.
So, again, it's this constant process, you know, beginning in the end, as you spoke about.
Yes. That they will never finish. Maybe they will.
But for me from now, I was really interested in leaving them.
Quite not quite pristinely finish for me, it's not ever going to be a pristine finish work,
um, but they may be mounted differently the next time you see them.
You know, we'll see where we.
Can I just say you haven't said anything about the wearable art, sorry, I'm in the middle of something else, the same question again.
Are you purposefully avoiding talking about that or is it.
I'm an abstract artist, as you may have seen. I'm a conceptual artist.
Um, how did you read it? What did it symbolise for you?
Well, the obvious thing to me was. But that was sort of as far as they got.
Yeah, I think for me it's that it was like it's between an umbilical cord and the skin that you shed.
So there are times when it's the skin, but the core of it is an umbilical cord. Yes, indeed.
I understood it as a snake, and I saw in it a snake charmer or using it a snake charmer.
I love that. I love that serpents are very present in my work.
Yes. Oh, it's definitely a choice, surely that's I'm not sure the material is,
but it's the last, at least in some ways, that it's it has some sort of inattention.
It's not flopping down flat on the ground now that it's so.
You said it's definitely inattention in the rovers. We can see the way that it's coiled now.
And how did you read it for? What was it for you?
I'm not sure, but that's definitely, I think, probably key to its dynamic within the dance that, yes, it has that property.
Oh, thank. I think things are extensions of your.
That's you and objects they become. The instrument by which he express.
Thus, they anticipate. Snake oil is fine, but don't do that because you do do with your body and.
Absolutely. You've got it in one. And I think that that is the opportunity for all of us, you know, to this kind of corporate expression.
This is very key in my work. Um.
But really bring ourselves front and centre to questions we're pondering or situations we're encountering, you know, really bringing ourselves and.
Placing ourselves centre, front and centre into whatever it is we're exploring, I feel that the.
Kind of like peering in at the edge, you know, for me,
there is a time when I actually look into them because they all represent different worlds and they all have their own story so that,
you know, there's a possibility and they will have a series of poems for each one as well.
I didn't choose one poem, you know, which would mean quite a didactic approach to it, which is not how I work,
but I feel that we're in a time where there is a requirement, there is a responsibility.
I feel for us to really stand front and centre with what we believe, you know, really deep conviction.
So that's also part of the invitation. Yeah. You know, we've been working together for about a year now.
And when you talk about The Matrix, for me, that's the part that is of sort of most poignant with regards to the whole world,
because that's one of the things, the stories she told me of when you went around the world, especially in Africa and you sat with The Matrix.
And it's like the handing down of, you know, uh, generational, generational, um,
characteristics and attributes that are taught that doesn't exist in today's society, which I believe is missing.
Can you sort of, like, expand a little bit on that on why I went with me?
Yeah, because I don't know if people realise, but the last part was when The Matrix, you know, that very symbolic.
But as I understand it, I don't want to take that much away, but I feel it's quite important for people to leave here.
Hmm. Understanding, because that is the history of how this came about.
You know. Lobaton in Mandinka culture stretching across Mali, Senegal and Guinea is a, quote, inspiration for this.
So this sculpture piece. When I was creating it, you know, they work inside as well.
They also have places, you know, and things happening inside and also almost people's.
But I really saw this as a crown, and this is part of the teachings.
Step into your power, step into your greatness, wear your crown.
These are threats of some of the poems that I was reading for you.
For me, the matriarchal wisdom, the African perspectives that I was so blessed and privileged to be.
Initiated into, trained in and at some point to accept as part of my work,
I see myself as a matriarchal emissary to bring this because I see how powerful these perspectives are.
And it's not that they're missing. I feel well, it's not that they are something that we don't know.
Perspective's.
You know, the goddess wear your crown queen is a very popular thing right now, is is out there in the world, is out there and literature.
The. Opportunity to explore my.
Innate feminine power through rites of passage is what the pageant teach and.
The inspiration for me to always recall the matriarchs comes from something that I
shared with you in the very beginning of which was no matter where I was sitting,
would it be in Ethiopia? In Senegal? I sat in southern Africa, different parts of southern Africa.
I would literally be at the grandmothers knees, literally sitting.
And they would always say very early on in the conversation, because often I would ask somebody to find this grandmother or this,
you know, these women who I later, for me was important to elevate their status to matriarchs.
They don't carry official titles are known as the Aunties in the Village. Oh, Johnny or you know, Josephine is coming to puberty.
Time to take it to the auntie so she can tell them about menstruation.
And, you know, it's the kind of role that the aunties play in the village and the community.
And they would always say, my child. Thank you for remembering us.
There was definitely this sense of, uh, um, want a secret society, you know, a lot of.
Thought they were secret, you could go in there, know men also had their initiation processes, but.
The sense of it being lost, the sense of this is a dwindling and somehow very valuable but not appreciated way of seeing the world.
And so for me, um. When I say the matriarchs, them say I use it a lot when I'm posting on social media.
It's really just to bring this consciousness around, you know, that we have ancient wisdom.
We have indigenous stories. I see them as anchors.
I see them as footholds.
And I see our being in this context and in this day and my work as an opportunity to anchor myself in those traditions and then to see my own gaze.
My life experience, my desires as an opportunity to transmit, transform, to offer and share.
So I'm happy that I'm an artist so that I can do this.