Ann Maria Healy - John Lonergan - Tracy O'Brien
performance text photos
Standing in a small rectangular, we shall say misshapen, room at the further end Kilmainham Gaol, I try to comprehend my recent journey through the overlooking architecture of this Victorian wing of the jail. I move from the panoptic style jail, as originally envisaged by social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1787 (1995), to this more private and almost domestic room. When I say domestic, it is not to be confused with the homely, for this room is far from that. It is, perhaps, the narrow wooden trough and few taps that run the bare stone walls that suggest the domestic chore and, more so, tell me that this is not a prison cell. In this room it occurs to me that it not so important to invoke the exact history of this specific and historical place, but to bring about a sense of how it was to exist here. To bring to mind all the years of incarceration, occupation, and abandonment this place has endured. The people who have dwelled here, worked here, and some who have died here, seem lost in these cavernous walls. In a sense, it is in the Right Here, Right Now that these artists must try to represent, not just the history of this place, but, those many fold human experiences which seem to have left so little evidence on these stone and time worn walls.
The rhythmic sounds of carved ice reverberate off the stone. They surround, dwell and die within the four cold walls. And, cold is the word! The artist Ann Maria Healy, clothed in a white dress which exposes her arms and legs, is barely protected from the cold, still air of this chilly November night. In the centre of the room there stands a rectangular block of ice, which comes just above her knee. A sense of ceremony and the meditative is obvious as the work unfolds. Her movements are cyclic; she walks anticlockwise around the rectangular block of ice. Sometimes, she releases a long, but not emotional, hum. Stopping and facing forward, in the direction of the entrance, she begins to grate at the ice. Deep in meditation she stares neither at her audience nor at the ice. However, she engages with both. At first, an aggression for the ice is imagined. The artist seems purpose bent to destroy it, or at least its shape, as she shaves at the edges and corners of the block. But a more complex emotion is invoked, as, at times she caresses the wet and silvery surface with her hands and arms almost lovingly. This cycle of pacing around, taking from, and touching the ice sets up an unusual dialogue between artist, object and audience. Her experience is physical and durational. We experience this through her. We cannot touch the ice, but we anticipate its coldness. We engage with the piece through our realisation of the process, the sound of both the grating and her hum, and our sense of physical space and time within the room. During the early stages of the performance I can only imagine being physically inside the impossible reality of an Emily Dickinson poem:
“As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.” (Dickinson, )
The block of ice comes to symbolise the room and the prison, both by its shape and its endurance to external forces. The sounds created and the physicality of the ice block creates a space where the artist’s presence can become an intervention. Here, she can realise both the time which has affected the place and the ceremony of those who have dwelled there.
How can a building represent the histories and people that have dwelled and sometimes suffered in that place? Walking through the space chosen for this performance show at Kilmainham Gaol, one also wonders to whom their allegiance lays. Is it to the many prisoners and guards, or maybe, to the forgotten attendants and workers, or is it perhaps only to the historical, the ‘heroes’ of the Irish fight for independence? It is true that the stone, wood and metal with which we structure our buildings often leave unmistakable evidence of that ever present creature time. The structure’s stone and mortar often show the work of decades and even centauries of decay, misuse, and abandonment. The paints peal, the limestone melts in water, the mortar crumbles. But, where can we place the human in this equation of time, this chemical reaction of place. Michel Foucault reveals, in his investigation of panopticon prisons such as this, how the human may be revealed: “Behind the disciplinary mechanisms can be read the haunting memory of ‘contagions’, of the plague, of rebellions, crimes, vagabondage, desertions, people who appear and disappear, live and die in disorder.” (Foucault, 198, p 198) Through the meditative and ceremonious intervention of Ann Maria Healy the audience can perhaps come a little closer to the shadows of the place, to those who ‘appear and disappear’, who ‘live and die’.
The rhythmic sounds of carved ice reverberate off the stone. They surround, dwell and die within the four cold walls. And, cold is the word! The artist Ann Maria Healy, clothed in a white dress which exposes her arms and legs, is barely protected from the cold, still air of this chilly November night. In the centre of the room there stands a rectangular block of ice, which comes just above her knee. A sense of ceremony and the meditative is obvious as the work unfolds. Her movements are cyclic; she walks anticlockwise around the rectangular block of ice. Sometimes, she releases a long, but not emotional, hum. Stopping and facing forward, in the direction of the entrance, she begins to grate at the ice. Deep in meditation she stares neither at her audience nor at the ice. However, she engages with both. At first, an aggression for the ice is imagined. The artist seems purpose bent to destroy it, or at least its shape, as she shaves at the edges and corners of the block. But a more complex emotion is invoked, as, at times she caresses the wet and silvery surface with her hands and arms almost lovingly. This cycle of pacing around, taking from, and touching the ice sets up an unusual dialogue between artist, object and audience. Her experience is physical and durational. We experience this through her. We cannot touch the ice, but we anticipate its coldness. We engage with the piece through our realisation of the process, the sound of both the grating and her hum, and our sense of physical space and time within the room. During the early stages of the performance I can only imagine being physically inside the impossible reality of an Emily Dickinson poem:
“As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.” (Dickinson, )
The block of ice comes to symbolise the room and the prison, both by its shape and its endurance to external forces. The sounds created and the physicality of the ice block creates a space where the artist’s presence can become an intervention. Here, she can realise both the time which has affected the place and the ceremony of those who have dwelled there.
How can a building represent the histories and people that have dwelled and sometimes suffered in that place? Walking through the space chosen for this performance show at Kilmainham Gaol, one also wonders to whom their allegiance lays. Is it to the many prisoners and guards, or maybe, to the forgotten attendants and workers, or is it perhaps only to the historical, the ‘heroes’ of the Irish fight for independence? It is true that the stone, wood and metal with which we structure our buildings often leave unmistakable evidence of that ever present creature time. The structure’s stone and mortar often show the work of decades and even centauries of decay, misuse, and abandonment. The paints peal, the limestone melts in water, the mortar crumbles. But, where can we place the human in this equation of time, this chemical reaction of place. Michel Foucault reveals, in his investigation of panopticon prisons such as this, how the human may be revealed: “Behind the disciplinary mechanisms can be read the haunting memory of ‘contagions’, of the plague, of rebellions, crimes, vagabondage, desertions, people who appear and disappear, live and die in disorder.” (Foucault, 198, p 198) Through the meditative and ceremonious intervention of Ann Maria Healy the audience can perhaps come a little closer to the shadows of the place, to those who ‘appear and disappear’, who ‘live and die’.
...
It is easy to rely on the exactitudes of history to relay the importance of this building. When I recall my four hour stay at this place it has been important to keep in mind that it has been at various stages, a prison, an escape from famine, an internment and execution place for the leaders of the Irish War of Independence, a vacant building, and a museum, among others things.(Cooke,) What seems important in all these histories, or what seems most common, is that it was a place of organisation, duration, and of being watched. Throughout the four hours of Ann Maria Healy’s piece, cycles, duration, and transience of time seem most prominent. The block of ice so solid at first diminishes and melts under the artist’s, and time’s hands. She scrapes sheets off the ice, as if they are moments off a sentence; somehow bringing her closer to an end. The water drips and flows to a drain in the far corner. One imagines how the water from the taps around the room would have once poured down to that drain. I imagine this place as a source of the hard repetitive tasks, maybe washing clothing or scrubbing floors. We see the repeated task imitated in Ann Maria’s practice. The process of grating and pacing by the artist presents to us how the majority of time was spent here. Long repetitive hours spent on physical work or in the endurance of time; organised and cyclical. This presents an authentic ‘experience’ of Kilmainham Gaol. The everyday separated, abstracted, and then re-presented to us. The cycles and repetition draw the audience closer to the lived experience of those who dwelled here and, perhaps, the years of weathering the building has endured. However at stages during the piece, through breaks in the narrative of the performance the artist challenges us to a more existential view of space.
The enduring hum of the performance is interrupted at a few key moments. These moments inject the transcendental into the mechanics of the performance. At points throughout the performance as the artist kneels in front of her icy task, she gently moves her hands and skin across it. In contrast to the aggression and rhythm she exhorts when taking from the ice, this she does almost lovingly. Often she lays her forehead devoutly in prayer on the ice. The cold water on her hair and skin we can imagine cooling the fervour of her more energetic bursts of assault upon the ice. At a later point she once again touches her head to the watery surface. This time the water having collected in her hair through the duration of the performance, almost exaggeratedly, cascades down her face and across her eyes. She raises her head skyward at this climactic moment. It is as if something has been answered from on high. The artist seems like some martyr doomed to failure, with this icy water taking the place of tears. The audience are emotively drawn in this moment to her task, in spite of its apparent futility. Perhaps, it is more appropriate to mention the prayer of a Zen monk than martyrdom. Her dharma actualised through ritual devotion and meditation. Like the transformations of Glass family throughout J.D. Salinger’s writing. This kōan, a statement whose meaning cannot be understood by thinking rationally but may be accessible through intuition that appears in three of Salenger’s works, evoked this idea for me:
“The little girl on the plane Who turned her doll’s head around To look at me.”(Salenger, 1964)
The enduring hum of the performance is interrupted at a few key moments. These moments inject the transcendental into the mechanics of the performance. At points throughout the performance as the artist kneels in front of her icy task, she gently moves her hands and skin across it. In contrast to the aggression and rhythm she exhorts when taking from the ice, this she does almost lovingly. Often she lays her forehead devoutly in prayer on the ice. The cold water on her hair and skin we can imagine cooling the fervour of her more energetic bursts of assault upon the ice. At a later point she once again touches her head to the watery surface. This time the water having collected in her hair through the duration of the performance, almost exaggeratedly, cascades down her face and across her eyes. She raises her head skyward at this climactic moment. It is as if something has been answered from on high. The artist seems like some martyr doomed to failure, with this icy water taking the place of tears. The audience are emotively drawn in this moment to her task, in spite of its apparent futility. Perhaps, it is more appropriate to mention the prayer of a Zen monk than martyrdom. Her dharma actualised through ritual devotion and meditation. Like the transformations of Glass family throughout J.D. Salinger’s writing. This kōan, a statement whose meaning cannot be understood by thinking rationally but may be accessible through intuition that appears in three of Salenger’s works, evoked this idea for me:
“The little girl on the plane Who turned her doll’s head around To look at me.”(Salenger, 1964)
...
The movement from ‘girl’ to ‘doll’ to ‘me’ brings to mind another idea of the artist’s white dress and performance: “The mind/spirit/soul of a child and what they represent: innocence, purity, emptiness, the ego-less.”(Metz, 2010) When reading Franny and Zoey just two weeks after this performance, it seemed an excellent parallel for the experience of Ann Maria Healy; as embodiment, performance, and presence. With her white dress, porcelain skin, and vacant meditative look she interrogates the object before her, and demands second reading from her audience. Her presence embodies time and performs place and people.
Images from The Fate Children of Lir, an Irish legend which I first experienced as a child, come to me during one of the later moments. The tale of these four misfortunate children who, during their 900 year trial, spend a torturous night on Sea of Moyle where “their feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the tops of their wings on the rock after them.”(Gregory, 1904) This emotive content comes to me as the artist breaks her routine by stepping out of her shoes and onto the treacherous surface of the block of ice. She stands up carefully but boldly on the ice. She presents the same distant visage, her face presented upward. We cannot tell if it is in defiance or acceptance. Whichever, it comes with a cruel punishment as when she retreats down her feet stick to the surface of the ice. The pealing back of skin from ice is audible. One tears away after the other. And, after a momentary pause the ritual resumes. During this second experience the audience, especially, is drawn into the physicality of the performance. It becomes obvious that memory can be invoked through physical movement. The artist crosses the border between history and object and stage and audience. We are drawn into a history of Kilmainham.
On two occasions, while I am in the room, the artist stares into the audience. On both occasions her eyes peer into mine. The first occasion is earlier in the work and I am able to stare back inquisitively if not defiantly. Later when she again breaks with her meditative state, obviously more exhausted than before; dizzy from endurance and task. Her gaze is more difficult to hold this time, I look away. The room seems less and less the sum of its four walls, but, more so, of the space and presence within them. It is simultaneously the sum of four hours, and many years. Place and time have cumulated in this repertoire. At the end of this four hour intervention, the coldness of the passage of time is still defiantly present. However, we can feel the place of human trial in its many forms practiced in our presence.
Emily Dickinson, I felt a funeral in my brain...
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead,
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.
And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down--
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing--then--
John Lonergan, December 2010
Bibliography
Gregory, Lady Augusta, Gods and Fighting Men:The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland. (1904). From: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/gafm
Bentham, Jeremy, The Panopticon Writings. Ed. Miran Bozovic (London: Verso, 1995). p. 29-95. http://cartome.org/panopticon2.htm
Metz, Scott. J. D. Salinger (1919-2010), http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2010/01/29/j-d-salinger-1919-2010/ (2010).
Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth ofthe Prison. (New York: Random House, 1995).
Dickinson, Emily, The Collected Poems, (1961)
Sallenger, J.D., Franny and Zooey (London: Penguin,1964).
Cooke, Pat, Kilmainham Gaol:Interpreting Irish nationalism and Republicanism. (Open Museum Journal Vol. 2, 2000). http://hosting.collectionsaustralia.net/omj/vol2/pdfs/cooke.pdf
Images from The Fate Children of Lir, an Irish legend which I first experienced as a child, come to me during one of the later moments. The tale of these four misfortunate children who, during their 900 year trial, spend a torturous night on Sea of Moyle where “their feet and their wings and their feathers froze to the rock, the way they were not able to move from it. And they made such a hard struggle to get away, that they left the skin of their feet and their feathers and the tops of their wings on the rock after them.”(Gregory, 1904) This emotive content comes to me as the artist breaks her routine by stepping out of her shoes and onto the treacherous surface of the block of ice. She stands up carefully but boldly on the ice. She presents the same distant visage, her face presented upward. We cannot tell if it is in defiance or acceptance. Whichever, it comes with a cruel punishment as when she retreats down her feet stick to the surface of the ice. The pealing back of skin from ice is audible. One tears away after the other. And, after a momentary pause the ritual resumes. During this second experience the audience, especially, is drawn into the physicality of the performance. It becomes obvious that memory can be invoked through physical movement. The artist crosses the border between history and object and stage and audience. We are drawn into a history of Kilmainham.
On two occasions, while I am in the room, the artist stares into the audience. On both occasions her eyes peer into mine. The first occasion is earlier in the work and I am able to stare back inquisitively if not defiantly. Later when she again breaks with her meditative state, obviously more exhausted than before; dizzy from endurance and task. Her gaze is more difficult to hold this time, I look away. The room seems less and less the sum of its four walls, but, more so, of the space and presence within them. It is simultaneously the sum of four hours, and many years. Place and time have cumulated in this repertoire. At the end of this four hour intervention, the coldness of the passage of time is still defiantly present. However, we can feel the place of human trial in its many forms practiced in our presence.
Emily Dickinson, I felt a funeral in my brain...
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead,
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.
And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down--
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing--then--
John Lonergan, December 2010
Bibliography
Gregory, Lady Augusta, Gods and Fighting Men:The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland. (1904). From: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/gafm
Bentham, Jeremy, The Panopticon Writings. Ed. Miran Bozovic (London: Verso, 1995). p. 29-95. http://cartome.org/panopticon2.htm
Metz, Scott. J. D. Salinger (1919-2010), http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2010/01/29/j-d-salinger-1919-2010/ (2010).
Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth ofthe Prison. (New York: Random House, 1995).
Dickinson, Emily, The Collected Poems, (1961)
Sallenger, J.D., Franny and Zooey (London: Penguin,1964).
Cooke, Pat, Kilmainham Gaol:Interpreting Irish nationalism and Republicanism. (Open Museum Journal Vol. 2, 2000). http://hosting.collectionsaustralia.net/omj/vol2/pdfs/cooke.pdf