Helena Walsh - Magdalena Maria Wieckiewicz - Joseph Carr
performance text photos
It’s quiet when I first enter the East Wing of Kilmainham Gaol, the audience is yet to arrive. The performance is scheduled to start in a few minutes and the artists stand at their points, frozen wax-like sculptures or figures in a tableau vivant. I look around. There is something astonishingly aesthetic about this monumental building, and for a while its sublime beauty takes over its tragic history. I am captivated by the elusive liaison between the silence and the grandeur of the place. I know it can’t last forever.
As if on cue, all twenty figures become alive and a sudden cacophony of noise seizes the space. The swish of a skipping rope scythes the cold air. Swish, swish, swish - rhythmical sound echoes through the edifice to meld gently with a lonely whistle emanating from nearby. Amidst the sounds and figures, my eyes rest on a young artist, Helena Walsh, standing in the middle of a small, damp cell. A white cloth covers her hair modestly; a bandage strap stretches across her breasts, giving only provisional protection from the cold and the curious glances while visibly de-feminising her body. The big blue rubber gloves on her hands add to the vulnerability of her posture. So too does the endless amount of white and blue baby grows, clipped together with blue laundry clips, that hang loosely from her hips.
.
The woman’s gaze is fixed beyond the spectators, as if she was focusing on the now, and perhaps in this very moment was seizing a glimpse of the past or promise of a future, of which she had been dreaming. Behind her, on a little bench, there are ten boxes of washing powder, placed neatly in two rows one next to another. They look dated, mouldy and dirty. Have they been there for a long time? Are they a temporal representation of an epoch and the passage of time? Under the bench I can see a small prop, a handmade miniature washing machine.
Deep inside of me, I am slightly self-conscious and overwhelmed. Never before have I been exposed to such an intense live experience and accumulation of stimuli. Never before have I been forced to engage with these types of spatio-temporal challenges of performance art. Its tenets are unbeknownst to me, bordering on the verge of uncanny. Is it natural that when we encounter the unknown, the first thing we do is look for affinities or activate defence mechanisms? How far is the gesture from the meaning? What is real? I search for clues and wonder about the nature of this encounter, hoping to settle, to somehow silence the questions?
Deep inside of me, I am slightly self-conscious and overwhelmed. Never before have I been exposed to such an intense live experience and accumulation of stimuli. Never before have I been forced to engage with these types of spatio-temporal challenges of performance art. Its tenets are unbeknownst to me, bordering on the verge of uncanny. Is it natural that when we encounter the unknown, the first thing we do is look for affinities or activate defence mechanisms? How far is the gesture from the meaning? What is real? I search for clues and wonder about the nature of this encounter, hoping to settle, to somehow silence the questions?
.
In the meantime, the figure begins to move, at first swinging her hips as if to some imaginary music. Next, she picks up one of the washing powder boxes and carefully empties it onto the floor. On the impact, the dust particles shoot up in the air and start swirling in a random rhythm of their own. The woman unpins one of the baby grows, kneels by the mountain of washing powder and places it in front of her with great care. In this epitome of motherly love and tenderness, there is also a tincture of sadness and pain. As she fills up the playsuit with washing powder, the obscure gesture becomes difficult to watch. I try to avoid her when she approaches me, somewhat afraid of the confrontation. ‘She slept well last night’ - I hear. I only manage to smile awkwardly in mute response. I feel forced into the narrative as a silent participant, who is not sure of her role in the story. So I follow the woman with my gaze as she prowls around with the baby grow dummy in her arms. The act of engaging with the piece proves tougher, as more people arrive and the whole space begins to vibrate and hum. My attention drifts in different directions, my point of focus fades in and out like tidal waves.
The overflow of stimuli, creeping cold and the passing of time leave their mark and derange my perceptual capacity. It’s been two hours or more… three, perhaps four boxes of washing powder away? I see three baby grows hanging inertly from the railings, their legs heavily-laden with soggy washing powder - a mimesis of masculinity. There is something sinister in this representation, a subtle resonance of the subdued female voices?
The overflow of stimuli, creeping cold and the passing of time leave their mark and derange my perceptual capacity. It’s been two hours or more… three, perhaps four boxes of washing powder away? I see three baby grows hanging inertly from the railings, their legs heavily-laden with soggy washing powder - a mimesis of masculinity. There is something sinister in this representation, a subtle resonance of the subdued female voices?
..
The sweet, soapy scent of powder disperses slowly around the room as the woman drowns yet another playsuit in the blue washtub. Engrossed in the mundane everyday reality, she resembles Vermeer’s heroines, beautiful and stoic. The cold water spills over and splatters around soaking her dress and bare feet. I can feel the cold and dampness. How does she overcome the limits of her own body?
She finally stops, wrenches the dripping material and freezes in a statue-like, empowering, almost suggestive pose of female domination. There is a quiet determination in her gesture, verging on the feminist and political. When she begins to repeat the cycle of events for the fifth time, I now notice that each of the baby outfits has a number and the word unknown inscribed on it. Suddenly, the recent news reports, countless articles and radio accounts related to the discovery of one hundred and thirty three unnamed graves at High Park Convent in 1993 run through my head.
I am no longer a mere spectator but a witness to the darkest and persistently haunting part of the Irish history - the Magdalene Laundries. And this woman in front of me challenges the predominant representation of femininity. She is no longer the subordinate of the patriarchal status quo, but a progenitor in establishing the female presence, speaking on behalf of those whose voices are not included in the gender and equality discourse.
She finally stops, wrenches the dripping material and freezes in a statue-like, empowering, almost suggestive pose of female domination. There is a quiet determination in her gesture, verging on the feminist and political. When she begins to repeat the cycle of events for the fifth time, I now notice that each of the baby outfits has a number and the word unknown inscribed on it. Suddenly, the recent news reports, countless articles and radio accounts related to the discovery of one hundred and thirty three unnamed graves at High Park Convent in 1993 run through my head.
I am no longer a mere spectator but a witness to the darkest and persistently haunting part of the Irish history - the Magdalene Laundries. And this woman in front of me challenges the predominant representation of femininity. She is no longer the subordinate of the patriarchal status quo, but a progenitor in establishing the female presence, speaking on behalf of those whose voices are not included in the gender and equality discourse.
..
The time is nearly up and the audience one by one deserts the building. The woman hangs the last wet playsuit with not inconsiderable effort. For quite a while now all her tedious, repetitive movements have been extending in time. As she slowly walks back to her cell, the baby grow dress trails across the floor like a train, yet instead of triumphant fanfares, there is dirt, cold and overwhelming tiredness. The woman’s eyes look weary, her facial muscles are tense and her body finally resigns. On my way out, I take the last glance at her leaning against the wall and breathing deeply. I admire her stamina, her ability to stay ‘in the now’ throughout the performance.
What is her motivation to stay focused? How does she sustain it? How do we, as humans, eliminate fear, pain and physical constraints in times of endurance? On a small scale in a four-hour performance and on the large scale, when the endurance is imposed on us interminably. Is it hope that helps us carry through? I think of all the people who had to struggle to stay alive day by day, the Holocaust survivors, the Magdalene victims and a quote comes to me: ‘those who survived, have their beginning, middle and ending. For them, the ending is astonishing: they are alive‘.[1]
Magdalena Maria Wieckiewicz, December 2010
[1] cited after Krzysztof Szwajca, co-author of the interview with Prof. Maria Orwid, a Holocaust Survivor, “Maria Orwid. Przezyc I co dalej?” Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krakow, 2006. http://www.dzieciholocaustu.org.pl/szab3.php?s=en_ostatni_szwajca.php,
What is her motivation to stay focused? How does she sustain it? How do we, as humans, eliminate fear, pain and physical constraints in times of endurance? On a small scale in a four-hour performance and on the large scale, when the endurance is imposed on us interminably. Is it hope that helps us carry through? I think of all the people who had to struggle to stay alive day by day, the Holocaust survivors, the Magdalene victims and a quote comes to me: ‘those who survived, have their beginning, middle and ending. For them, the ending is astonishing: they are alive‘.[1]
Magdalena Maria Wieckiewicz, December 2010
[1] cited after Krzysztof Szwajca, co-author of the interview with Prof. Maria Orwid, a Holocaust Survivor, “Maria Orwid. Przezyc I co dalej?” Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krakow, 2006. http://www.dzieciholocaustu.org.pl/szab3.php?s=en_ostatni_szwajca.php,