I have asked myself the same question that I asked the people in Sri Lanka – ‘After the worst thing you could imagine happened to you, when your existence was clouded with grief and loss, what were the moments that called you back towards life?’ I made a list. I counted my blessings, and started […]
There is a resonance, an echo, in the painting of the Sura Medura boats that I hadn’t seen. It was an activity of such blazing similarity that I can’t believe I failed to recognise it. My sister Di reminded me – ‘The last things you painted were Mum’s and Dad’s coffins’. Early in 2004 Mum […]
Waiting for the Peacock Mangalika’s favourite sound is the voice of the peacock who visits her garden early in the morning and at dusk. It seems impossible that he can fly, but Mangalika assures us that he can, his magnificent, iridescent tail streaming behind him. The Big Fish I dreamed this image, an impossibly huge […]
Granny Arioti Arioti is 73, has five children and thirteen grandchildren. Her husband died in a bike accident. When the first tsunami wave came she ran, there was no husband to save her. She lives alone in Peraliya and is very happy. She adores her family, who all want her to move in with them, […]
Eight stories are now painted on one side of the catamaran, and eight more half-finished on the other, each one nestled between mangroves. Here are a few of them… The Big Wedding Aruni fell in love when she was sixteen. Both sets of parents disapproved, especially the boy’s family. She dreamed of a wonderful wedding, […]
When I came to Sri Lanka I thought I would be scanning a new horizon, that my focus would be new materials, new processes, fresh thinking. Inevitably perhaps, Bill has come with me on this journey (and he’s very welcome here). Most surprising for me is that I have returned to my very first mark-making. […]
There would almost always be a time when we shared how our day had been, no matter where in the world he and I were, or how far apart. What did you see that gave you wonder? Did you hear something that made you sad? Someone who made you angry? Did you find beauty? I’m […]
There were two waves. The first hit the coast at Hikkaduwa without warning, stopping the train, washing away shelters and boats. And then the sea vanished towards the horizon, leaving fish flapping on the never-before-revealed sand. People, children, rushed out onto the expanse in wonder, collecting the fish. There are many deeply upsetting images in […]
For more than thirty years I have been making art and theatre in the wild, not in theatres or galleries, playing and experimenting with new tools, media and materials – ice, seawater, cake, mud, plants, cranes, horses, distance, boats, twilight, fire. I am a maker, performer, storyteller, curator and director. I have walked much of […]
Well, this has been a strange and eventful phase in the SWERUS cruise. Mostly nothing involving science as we’ve been parked in an ice floe for nearly 2 weeks. Have been keeping amused with chores, cleaning, splitting cores, writing piston core manuals… And we had Surstromming, the rotten fish in a can. Just a brilliant […]