Queer in Nature
In September, 2022, I participated in a monthlong residency at the Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland. During this residency I was moved by the Burren's stunning landscape and the inherent spirituality of the place and its culture. My interest in the ways which stories are embedded in the Irish landscape (for instance, in each pasture is named for a significant event that occurred or a person connected to the piece of land) lead me to read Bruce Chatwin's book Songlines, which details the profound relationship between aboriginal peoples of Australia, their landscape, and their sacred songs, Tim Ingold's The Life of Lines, and local luminary John O'Donuhue's Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World. Guided by this research, the power of the place, and my own intuition, I engaged in a practice of listening to the land and asking for the spirit of a place to grant me a song. I called the resulting songs Landsongs. I documented this collaborative process and shared the work during the open studios on the final weekend of the residency. Through a creative process that values ancient, earth-based, queer, and intuitive ways of knowing, I sought to de-colonize my consciousness from what bell hooks called "white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy" while offering the viewer a portal to a spirit world that is hidden in plain site all around us. Hand in Hand, one of several Landsongs composed in Ireland, is documented below, along with an additional foray into this approach in the Hudson Valley.
Hand in Hand - Landsong 1
Marking the site of Hand in Hand
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Google Maps location
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View from the site, a horse pasture overlooking the Burren College of Art.
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Hand in Hand
Summer wind, winter rain, spring grass Hand in hand Summer wind, winter rain, spring grass Hand in hand Summer wind, hand in hand Winter rain, hand in hand Spring grass, hand in hand |
Back in the Hudson Valley, I further developed Hand in Hand, adding a full musical production that blends the ancient round singing style of the original tune with contemporary music.
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