Grass Residency

Alkmini Gkousiari & Isobel O’Donavon

On 26 October 2023 by

During The Grass Residency Alkmini experimented with her visual and vocal vocabulary. She spent a concentrated time reflecting and untangling thoughts and performance ideas on the romanticization of rural life in Greece and Ireland. Using tools such as grass, shepherd calls and bells. She experimented with the idea of bells as a universal sonic tool in religion and life, the representation of modern “ruralness” and the hierarchical powers within a herd of sheep and a herd of people.


Alkmini also spent part of her residency collaborating with artist Isobel O’Donovan. Departing
from the slug’s lovedart as means of procreation, Isobel and Alkmini explored Milford house and
the landscape surrounding it by closing the distance between their bodies and the grass’s living
organisms. Their interactions treaded the boundary between pleasure and pain in a way to
communicate the permanence and temporality of the performing body in the landscape. Their
bodies tangled and spiraled in the grass leaving traces and challenging the soils capacity to
hold the human body.
Isobel and Alkmini will continue their collaboration beyond the residency’s duration and let a
new piece of work grow. These images are the residue of their time spent moving through the
landscape.

Alkmini Gkousiari

My practice attempts to encapsulate the myth of coming-into-being through exploring. ‘motherlands’, rural and urban orthodox rituals. With playful storytelling in collaborations, installations and performances, I interrogate landscapes of historic and spiritual significance I find myself within. I feel the need to experiment with the use of my visual vocabulary. A concentrated space to look back into my personal archive and attempt to untangle the conceptual themes that re appear in my work. I believe the residency program and theme is the perfect space to share these explorations. Taking inspiration from the sounds of my rural upbringing and concentrating on shepherds calls and vocabularies/tools to communicate with livestock I hope to investigate how these sounds become one in memory in Ireland and Greece through the land and the romanisation of rural life in each country and its present use in connection to climate change. Bells are a universal sonic tool in religion and life. I want to experiment and create tools/instruments to interrogate modern “ruralness” and connect with the residency’s theme. I believe bells and other sound making objects hold such intensity and can start conversation about class – servitude, and sociopolitical backgrounds connected to hierarchical power.

find out more on website: https://alkminigkousiari.cargo.site/

Isobel O’Donavon

Isobel O’Donovan is an Irish artist and writer currently based in Glasgow. She obtained a First Class degree from the Glasgow School of Art in 2020 in Sculpture and Environmental Art. She is currently enrolled on the Mlitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, whilst continuing to develop her visual arts practice. 

find out more on website: https://isobel-odonovan.com/