grass bucket head crawl
For the past week I have been trying out some moving, acting, sounding, and voicing. Working with props that connect to grass as part of the dairy industry, as a crop and as fodder and as having economic value within the production of milk. Also working with an awareness of plants as indicators of environmental damage, of ecological disruption, as impacted by human activity. I have used tasks as ways of developing movement, of generating sounds, of prompting actions, and of allowing focus to shift to doing in the moment. The grass rustles, the plastic sack crackles, the bucket clunks and rattles. Out in the front field at Milford House, I hear the busy road, I see various agricultural projects in the fields around me, I feel the grass wet, prickly, rough, soft, I smell the soil and in among the stems I see that activity of invertebrates, insects, spiders, worms carries on regardless of my daft action above them.
In green and gold, colours of grass and butter, emblematic of the dairy industry in Ireland, echoing the national flag, and county colours – here an intersection of sport and agriculture, as the figure wrestles with a black bale, pickled or preserved grass, winter fodder to maintain output, clambering round the monolith, the isolated polythene wrapped lump, where is the winning in this, what prospect for growth, what are the conditions like on the ground, in the field?
Mark Leahy is a writer and artist working with text, voice, sound and actions. Originally from Ireland, he now lives and works in South West England. His work uses constraints, structures, and other strategies to question category and genre divisions including around identity and agency. He makes solo and collaborative performance works that use language, gesture, and digital interfaces to examine how individuals are shaped by cultural and social forces. Works look at the performer’s body as policed by economic, political and cultural narratives, at how ‘voice’ functions to place someone, and at how the language can perpetuate inequalities. Projects have explored the capacity, meaning and culture of the human voice, alongside the presentation and performance of self. Performances and live work include ‘revised dictionary supplement’ (Plymouth, Falmouth, 2022); ‘Breath Pieces’ (Glasgow, June 2018); ‘telling time’ (Jamboree, Dartington, June 2018); ’threaded insert’ (Plymouth Art Weekender 2017; Cardiff, May 2018). Work for radio includes ‘Hello! This is a test.’ for radia.fm (2021), the Constrained Radio series for Soundart Radio (2021).
At Sounds Like: 3 Projects was published by if p then q books in 2021, Swatches was published by Acts of Language (2009), and Subject to Gesture by Dock Road Press (2017), and poems have appeared in Stride, Freaklung, Curly Mind, Other Room Anthology 8. Artist publications include ‘9×9: a set of poems under constraint’ (ArtsandCultureExeter, 2020), ’in the key of’ (Counter Plymouth Artist Book Fair, 2015) and ‘lengths and ends: six poems for Penzance’ (CAZ Weekender, Penzance, 2012). He has written on work by artists including Nathan Walker, Andrew Kearney, Steven Paige, and LOW PROFILE. Critical publications include essays in C21 Literature, Open Letter, Performance Research and Writing in Creative Practice. He is active in peer-networks supporting artists’ activity in his region, teaches part-time at University of Plymouth and Falmouth University, and works with a number of arts and creative organisations. markleahy.net.
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