A (un)heard voice reads into public air

‘Performances’ at Convent in Rome

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Sorrowful), Rome | July 2024

A ‘return’,

An invitation from ‘My Mother Laughs’

These photos were taken during the ‘Public’ Air performances in a convent in Rome 15 July - 19 July 2024

Each ‘performance’ sits in the durational time spent in the convent, moving from the writing of scripts to the voicing into ‘public’ air. Each iteration moves as its desires through the space, bodily tracings through the atmospheres it breathes.

My breath from the ‘Public’ Performances is felt in the filmic bodies, layered over the ‘Private’ Performances.

Gestures,

Voice,

Breath,

Air,

Ear,

Temporal Rituals.

Fragments of the script from the ‘performance’ follow.

These performances began from a ‘return’ to a book left in a convent in Venice of ‘My Mother Laughs’ by Chantal Akerman in 2023. This conversation with Akerman and her mother continue through exploring the poetics of breath in the text. Situated Irish maternal breath explodes outwards to encompass all those who arrive.

‘My shadow touches the gesturing hand of the Virgin Mary.

Breath is lost in my body.

A sudden catch in my throat.

Breath catches in my throat. Held.

Reaching for my tongue.

Beyond touch.

Held in my throat. 

My knees feel the wood of the pews in London.

My grandmother is by my side.

Is this before or after Holy Communion?

Have I arrived, or departed? Or departed too late?

I forget.

Time out of kilter.

The nun is with her companion.

Nuns are always in pairs here.

Side by side.

All these relations are unexpected.

The pull to return.

Unexpected.

Take a deep breath.

I know these words will be held in our collective air.

I write these words for my mother, for you.

We will read them together over the dining room table.

Felt in filmic breath, that comes later.

This is my letter to you,

You, here, in our space.

A moment yet to come.

Fragments are held here from the scripts, that are felt in full in filmic breath and voiced into the air at embodied circular readings. Theresa’s words (my aunt) and my mother’s are held only in the temporal care of the embodied circular readings alongside the polyphony of voices that join the chorus of the reorientations of the Irish Catholic maternal.