Victoria Mc Cormack - Maeve Mulreannan - Margaret Byrne
performance text photos
A Freedom To Dream
Victoria McCormack’s durational performance piece ‘Surrender’ took place in the main area of Kilmainham Gaol. Not confined to a cell, McCormack defined her own space and set her own terms of engagement with the viewers. The piece began with McCormack, dressed in red, surrounded by a mound of white feathers. Throughout the next four hours her gestures were formal and exact. There was a tension in her gesture of her hands up while she looked skywards through the glass dome of the prison.
The immediate connotation that came to mind was of tarring and feathering. However the feathers are treated with care. After the artist spun around, she then carefully gathered the stray feathers back into the mound. Thus a juxtaposition of letting go / relinquishing and trying to retain occurred. There was also a duality between the feathers being safe and dreamlike, a space for the artist to curl up in, and a space that was controlling, a space from which it could be thought the artist was escaping from. This space is internal and reflected in the controlled external surroundings of the Gaol. This duality evidenced in the gesture of the artist crawling outwards and stopping, with half her body outside the heap of white feathers and half inside.
Other gestures such as spinning, a crucifix pose and a ‘freefalling’ pose bring movement and dialogue into the piece: what is the purpose of the whirling: is to meditate or to blow the feathers away? Are the crucifix and freefalling poses gestures of surrender or defiance?
This second question is the core of this performance piece. In ‘Surrender’ the artist invites us to explore the notion that there is a complex intertwining between defiance and surrender, and often there are elements of one in the other. By whirling, stretching and reaching, McCormack is displaying gestures of surrender. However rather than being an act of submission, it becomes an act of freedom and release. McCormack is not giving up, she is letting go.
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Part of the performance ‘Surrender’ is the contrast between the clenched fist and the open hand. This movement encourages the viewer to follow this aforementioned line of thinking. There is a certain release of tension and trauma when McCormack goes through the ritual of spreading out both the feathers and her body, and of gathering things back up. One could read that she is exploring her awareness of self in a space where she is under the glare or observation of the viewer and of the Gaol itself. The context of Kilmainham Gaol automatically gives the viewer the connotations of being imprisoned and weak versus the prison warden or viewer. McCormack explores the notion of there being liberation in confinement – particularly when she is confined by a combination of the viewer’s witnessing of the event and the white feathers. This is particularly relevant when quoting Gérard de Nerval: ‘…“an atmosphere of unutterable bliss” where the jailor is jealous of the prisoner’s freedom to dream.’ 1 This can be seen in a particularly poignant moment when McCormack reaches upwards, vibrating with energy, while other artists Dominic Thorpe and Pauline Cummins interacted with each other through voice in the level above her.
The addition of the feathers brings in a fantastical or dreamlike narrative. They look like the will blow away in the draughty atrium of the building at any minute. At the beginning of the performance McCormack is surrounded by them and does not leave this encasement. Any time the feathers spread out there is an attempt by her to bring them back in again. By the end of the performance, it is almost like there is a magnetic pull between artist and feathers; they are like her aura, allowing her the freedom to dream. There is a balance between being present in the space, and conveying a feeling of being in a dream, or slightly outside of this space, looking in. McCormack maintains a strong presence throughout the duration of the performance. The most poignant part was when she curled up in the foetal position, nesting in the feathers. This very primal gesture could be seen as a symbol of vulnerability: of curling up and hiding. However this is where the narrative of the performance arcs: McCormack has gone through a process of reaching out, putting her hands up in surrender and tracing her facial features in an act of self awareness. These rituals allow her to let go and release her inner jailor and to find peace.
The addition of the feathers brings in a fantastical or dreamlike narrative. They look like the will blow away in the draughty atrium of the building at any minute. At the beginning of the performance McCormack is surrounded by them and does not leave this encasement. Any time the feathers spread out there is an attempt by her to bring them back in again. By the end of the performance, it is almost like there is a magnetic pull between artist and feathers; they are like her aura, allowing her the freedom to dream. There is a balance between being present in the space, and conveying a feeling of being in a dream, or slightly outside of this space, looking in. McCormack maintains a strong presence throughout the duration of the performance. The most poignant part was when she curled up in the foetal position, nesting in the feathers. This very primal gesture could be seen as a symbol of vulnerability: of curling up and hiding. However this is where the narrative of the performance arcs: McCormack has gone through a process of reaching out, putting her hands up in surrender and tracing her facial features in an act of self awareness. These rituals allow her to let go and release her inner jailor and to find peace.
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Although the performance is literally situated in a prison, the space that McCormack is exploring is a psychological prison, full of dark corners and labyrinthine structures, like Piranesi’s Carceri d'invenzione or 'Imaginary Prisons'.2 Foucault counts prisons as one of the Heterotopic Spaces of deviance:
“Fifth principle. Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable. In general, the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like a public place. Either the entry is compulsory, as in the case of entering a bar- racks or a prison, or else the individual has to submit to rites and purifications.”3
Moreover, McCormack’s work lead’s on from the space of the prison and explores the individual submitting to rites. There is a certain ritual in her movement and gestures which would engender the idea of rites and purifications. Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon, a circular prison where the central jailor figure can see every cell, also speaks of the constant visibility of the prisoner being the key into the internalisation of self-discipline. Essentially the prisoner imprisons themselves.4 This is the witness / viewer’s key to exploring ‘Surrender’ as McCormack tests both the gaze of the actual space upon her, the gaze of the viewer, and the internal gaze of the self.
The placement of feathers brings a tension to the work. At the beginning, the viewer expects them to be thrown, moved or blown away. We are waiting for something to happen. Once the whirling starts, we expect it again and again. McCormack’s narrative is not one of simple answers and resolutions. The whirling through feathers would have been an easy way to work with them, but McCormack brings in other strands in order to make her work more multi-layered. The phrase ‘an imaginative whirlpool’5 comes to mind. McCormack begins the performance by drawing us in slowly, asking us to consider the external space and the form, colour and tone of the performance, before whirling through a series of tense and relaxed gestures, exploring a narrative of self- discipline and freedom.
‘Surrender’ is a work that asks us to consider existing forms of domination and how we self-discipline in a more lateral way. Things are not black and white. This is an Other Space, Foucault’s Heterotopic Space, a warren of thoughts that contradict, erase and clash with each other. Kilmainham Gaol is the physical manifestation of what holds us back, and ‘surrender’ is the exploration in the freedom to dream beyond constraint.
Maeve Mulreannan, December 2010
1 Bert O. States ‘The Piranesi Effect: Alone and Well in Prison’ The Hudson Review Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1979-1980), pp. 617-620 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3849825 Accessed 15/12/2010
2http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pd/g/giovanni_battista_piranesi,_ca.aspx Accessed 8/12/2010
3 Michel Foucault and Jay Miskowiec Of Other Spaces Diacritics, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring, 1986), p26 http://www.jstor.org/stable/464648 Accessed 21/12/2010
4 Margaret Kohn The Power of Place: The House of the People as Counterpublic Polity Vol 33 No 4 Summer 2001p504
5 Bram Stoker Dracula Chapter 1 p16 Penguin Popular Classics London 2007