Holy Hiatus: untitled
is an annual event created by artists Maura Hazelden and Lou Laurens and will
be showing on May 22nd, from 4pm to 10.15, in Small World Theatre.
Maura was originally commissioned by Ruth Jones to make a work for ‘Holy
Hiatus: Ritual and Community in Public Art’, a symposium and series of
commissioned works, including work by Alastair McLennan and Simon Whitehead,
shown in Cardigan in 2008.
Maura invited Lou to work with her on a piece which explored
repetition. In that first year, they had many discussions about the kind of
rituals we all engage in, ranging from quotidian activities such as making and
serving a meal, to events which mark the passing of the year, and religious
festivals. Maura and Lou both had an interest in how simple acts might become
devotional through intention and also how rituals develop over long periods of
time, when circumstances change how they are celebrated. They created a
durational event in Small World Theatre and have continued it as an annual
event, now independently of the commission. Holy
Hiatus: untitled is in its sixth year, each time having been different and
yet the same, always on the same date: May 22nd.
This year there are particular challenges. Lou has recently
given birth to her first child and Maura has photosensitivity and difficulty
working bare foot. Their physical
ability to perform in the event is likely to be limited and changed. Both
artists feel that this in itself raises interesting questions about performance
and ritual, questions which were inevitable in mounting such an ambitious
project, such as: are we participants in the event or performers? Are the
audience participants in this ritual? When we celebrate our daily and annual
rituals what remains the same and what changes, and how much are the changes the
way we remember? ‘Oh that was the Christmas that we had
to…. because of such and such…’
Although, or perhaps because, this is an intense and deeply
vulnerable time for both artists, the event promises to be a moving and wonderful
experience for attendees. The event will include performance, video projection
and an extraordinary evolving soundscape created by the process of recording
the playback of each previous year’s performance, so that the layers are
transformed by the acoustic response of the building itself.
There is an accompanying exhibition at Small World Theatre,
open until the 24th of May
