Bronte Heron

Dismantle the shelter of myself

027 A3735

There is potential for specified spaces to be opened out. My feet are not rooted down; a position is taken in response to a lived environment and is therefore constantly shifting. The boundaries that are perceived as definite (structural, integral) come to be viewed as porous; as I may internalise a preconceived way of being there exists the possibility of moving beyond the ‘over defined, the over-identified. [1]

Living takes place within frames that encourage habituated practices of closing, restricting the movements of the body. Feminine embodiment is carried out through body performativity, and by way of repeated action I come to be entrenched within structures that shape perception and hinder possibility. An adherence to linearity sanctions complicity and refuses to acknowledge the body as ‘affective…not…a fixed entity…but…a network of interconnected flows.'2

In relinquishing self-possession I give myself to the field of the other.3 The sovereign subject, or body-as-image, is reconceived as a sensorial being who may draw new (malleable) lines of understanding to demarcate spaces of ambiguity. A ‘germinal ground for change or transformation'4 is laid down. Practices of living research seek new ways of moving through the world, taking material form in a series of experiments that are infinitely expanding and indefinitely contracting. Could we establish some kind of agency within the structures we inhabit by perceiving signifiers of subjugation as signifiers of empowerment? Or envisage an existence that lies outside of systematising modes of domination? Learning from and with each other is a form of processual becoming and is perpetually unfinished; an activity decoupled from the operational demands placed upon it, regarded instead as the primary concern.

Platforms are cultivated as ‘microclimates of hope' 5 for the body to rest in. Qualities of provisionality allow for modes of mobility; I could pick up and carry sites of inhabitation such as the one we currently occupy. Within such a space reparative actions are performed which aim to restore the body to a state of readiness. Attention (listening) to the habits of the body wills a transformation into conscious practice, enabling ways of being that affirm corporeal and affective methods of understanding. This may work to renegotiate an instrumentalised approach to time (considering cyclical instead of forward movement). I come to renew this place by way of attentive repetition; with each return I bring in the fresh air. My body adapts accordingly.

  1. Ruth Buchanan, Lying Freely, 17.
  2. Emma Cocker, ‘Reading Towards Becoming Causal’, Reading Feeling, 22.
  3. Rosalyn Diprose, Corporeal Generosity, 4.
  4. Emma Cocker, ‘Reading Towards Becoming Causal’, Reading Feeling, 23.
  5. Ann Cvetkovich, Depression: A Public Feeling, 189.
Dsc0546
Dsc0549
Dsc0548
Dsc0557
43 A5559
43 A5560
027 A3815
43 A5561
027 A3735
027 A3731

Related Artists