Frances Mezzetti - Enagh Farrell - Sebastian Dooris
performance text photos
A Response and Echo to Frances Mezzetti‘s Performance.
Eyes fixed on the smooth fabric, running itself through the belly of her machine. Identical stitches punching holes and threading yarn. Wise hands, lined with time, delicately nursing the length of gingham, so that it remains steadily on its course, as the thread combines with it to offer another existence. In that moment it has moved from simplicity to a new creation. To one side she has gently and proudly placed her various selection of newly altered checkered and plain white cloth, and on the other, she has laid out the fresh material yet to be crafted by the hum of her old machine.
Breathing in, she brings the air right down to the pit of her stomach, holding onto it, enveloping it, as it exudes further into her, so that it almost reaches her toes. Those feet that have walked and walked, so many steps, over and over, sometimes retracing steps, imprinting their memory onto the floorboards, the pathways and the sand. At times they have burst into ecstatic dance; and the creaking floorboards that knows those steps so well have been unable to predict where the left foot will land next and if the right foot will once again punch it on its largest knot, which has been there since its leisurely and youthful past spent on leafy woodland pastures. It has the ability to remember clearly all those who have danced on its surface, and the ones who eternally paced up and down, back and forth and sometimes from side to side. Since it shares such a close relationship to whoever stands on it, those shoes, and boots or bare-feet, it believes that it can sense their emotions. It swears this to the walls, the ceiling and the door. The wooden floor often recounts tales of courage, sadness and joy. It is emphatic in its recollections, battling with the less convinced ceiling, aiming to persuade it that emotions can seep down, through the feet and into the deepest grains of its wood, just like the threads that are streaming now from this silent ladies sewing machine, amalgamating with the dust and dirt between its beams.
Eyes fixed on the smooth fabric, running itself through the belly of her machine. Identical stitches punching holes and threading yarn. Wise hands, lined with time, delicately nursing the length of gingham, so that it remains steadily on its course, as the thread combines with it to offer another existence. In that moment it has moved from simplicity to a new creation. To one side she has gently and proudly placed her various selection of newly altered checkered and plain white cloth, and on the other, she has laid out the fresh material yet to be crafted by the hum of her old machine.
Breathing in, she brings the air right down to the pit of her stomach, holding onto it, enveloping it, as it exudes further into her, so that it almost reaches her toes. Those feet that have walked and walked, so many steps, over and over, sometimes retracing steps, imprinting their memory onto the floorboards, the pathways and the sand. At times they have burst into ecstatic dance; and the creaking floorboards that knows those steps so well have been unable to predict where the left foot will land next and if the right foot will once again punch it on its largest knot, which has been there since its leisurely and youthful past spent on leafy woodland pastures. It has the ability to remember clearly all those who have danced on its surface, and the ones who eternally paced up and down, back and forth and sometimes from side to side. Since it shares such a close relationship to whoever stands on it, those shoes, and boots or bare-feet, it believes that it can sense their emotions. It swears this to the walls, the ceiling and the door. The wooden floor often recounts tales of courage, sadness and joy. It is emphatic in its recollections, battling with the less convinced ceiling, aiming to persuade it that emotions can seep down, through the feet and into the deepest grains of its wood, just like the threads that are streaming now from this silent ladies sewing machine, amalgamating with the dust and dirt between its beams.
...
The ceiling sneers each time. “Emotion…. What is this?” It is convinced that thought is all that exists and that it has eternally acted like a sponge, soaking up all the thinking that has ever been done in the room. This of course is why it is so intelligent and full of worldly knowledge. It has extracted thoughts from men and woman, children and babies, educated and ignorant, innocent and devilishly evil. Like the floor, it has not forgotten, it is filled with memory, which has threaded through and permeated right to its very core. Sometimes, when the floor is recounting one of its tales of by gone days, the ceiling- though it hates to admit it, can almost see the figures come to life, smell the fear on their breath, taste the salt on their skin, hear those final thoughts over and over. It is as if those threads of memory embedded into the room can return to life. Once walked footsteps are again making sounds.
She is making an offering to those who have appeared around her. Gentle in her approach, she breathes down to her feet, which are still today, firmly planted, aware of the creaky-cold floorboards beneath them. She has laid out the delicate material that she so lovingly sewed, onto a serving tray, covering it with salt. This she has collected from the sea, from tears that she has shed and from the sweat of those brave souls she admired. Carefully she has collected all these salty liquids and patiently waited for them to dry so as to prepare the finest grade sodium.
She is making an offering to those who have appeared around her. Gentle in her approach, she breathes down to her feet, which are still today, firmly planted, aware of the creaky-cold floorboards beneath them. She has laid out the delicate material that she so lovingly sewed, onto a serving tray, covering it with salt. This she has collected from the sea, from tears that she has shed and from the sweat of those brave souls she admired. Carefully she has collected all these salty liquids and patiently waited for them to dry so as to prepare the finest grade sodium.
...
Her offer is accepted by the first participant and hands are placed through the fine grains, moving it about in an individualistic way, watching its whiteness fall and reworking it over and over, until they leave an imprint. Some of those who have come to visit reflect her calmness, while others are brash and rush their interaction with her and the salt laden tray. She remains the still seamstress, echoing reminders of the three fates from Greek Mythology, who spun a length of thread for each allotted time span: every person representing a thread, taking its place on a giant, richly-woven tapestry.
The length of time it takes for each person to complete their mark depends on the varying personas. Imprints are hastily dusted over, while others trust their original sketch. The faculties of her four senses and another, ineffable quality, helps her to fully comprehend each presence. She remembers the shape of every pair of hands, the rough skin on the knuckles, the gnarled wart on the top of the left thumb, the gold wedding band bound to that finger. She takes this all in and like air, she places it in her belly, a treasure chest of salty threads, knotting together accumulated emotion, thought and memory, from all those she has had relation to. Over time, it sinks to her feet, down to the floorboards, mixing with the quiet reminiscences of other forgotten tales and tragedies.
She begins to wrap, knowing that the essence of these bundles has already been folded up inside of her and in this room. Like those who have gone before, a little part of these people will remain there forever, in the floor, in the ceiling, in the walls… The dandruff that fell silently from his head and onto the floorboard, the thread that unraveled from her skirt and into the crack beside the door, this moment forever eclipsed in her heart and in this room. She wraps this all up, feet resolutely planted, almost part of the floorboards so that it absorbs her, and she is beginning to sense its vast pool of recollections.
The length of time it takes for each person to complete their mark depends on the varying personas. Imprints are hastily dusted over, while others trust their original sketch. The faculties of her four senses and another, ineffable quality, helps her to fully comprehend each presence. She remembers the shape of every pair of hands, the rough skin on the knuckles, the gnarled wart on the top of the left thumb, the gold wedding band bound to that finger. She takes this all in and like air, she places it in her belly, a treasure chest of salty threads, knotting together accumulated emotion, thought and memory, from all those she has had relation to. Over time, it sinks to her feet, down to the floorboards, mixing with the quiet reminiscences of other forgotten tales and tragedies.
She begins to wrap, knowing that the essence of these bundles has already been folded up inside of her and in this room. Like those who have gone before, a little part of these people will remain there forever, in the floor, in the ceiling, in the walls… The dandruff that fell silently from his head and onto the floorboard, the thread that unraveled from her skirt and into the crack beside the door, this moment forever eclipsed in her heart and in this room. She wraps this all up, feet resolutely planted, almost part of the floorboards so that it absorbs her, and she is beginning to sense its vast pool of recollections.
...
Our protagonist can also cast her mind back, she too has been here for a long time, but in this moment she refuses the trickery of nostalgia. Instead, concentrating on who is before her, and the bundle they are helping her to create and transform. Wisdom has taught her of the fragility of time, a temporal and abstract force. She knows that to deny the pleasure of complete immersion in the present is to block an abundance of possibilities. She knows this, and so, instead of contemplation, she continues her methodical ritual.
The gingham and plain white parcels full of salt and yarn are then suspended from the ceiling. Beside each other they sway, attached to blood red ribbons, which she found long ago, washed up on the beach. The ceiling prides itself with the ability to hold the womb like bundles in place. It considers them to be like giant tentacles or extensions of all those echoing clandestine thoughts that have been woven throughout its materiality. Each bundle telling an individual story infused with the memories of its makers- the lady who sewed the material and the ones who received the offering and imprinted their legacy deep into that well of salt, transmuting and completing the tale and beginning the thread of another.
Enagh Farrell, January 2011
The gingham and plain white parcels full of salt and yarn are then suspended from the ceiling. Beside each other they sway, attached to blood red ribbons, which she found long ago, washed up on the beach. The ceiling prides itself with the ability to hold the womb like bundles in place. It considers them to be like giant tentacles or extensions of all those echoing clandestine thoughts that have been woven throughout its materiality. Each bundle telling an individual story infused with the memories of its makers- the lady who sewed the material and the ones who received the offering and imprinted their legacy deep into that well of salt, transmuting and completing the tale and beginning the thread of another.
Enagh Farrell, January 2011