Lay With Me,
Live Perofrmance,
Marrickville Garage Gallery, 2015. 

Lay With Me, durational performance, 2 days - 15 hours.
Saturday and Sunday, 25-26th July, 2015.

Images by Vanessa Finder.

The need to be mirrored, and the ongoing necessity of a reflection, is crucial in order to preserve and construct an internal monologue that defines the self. The ever-changing understanding of our self fluctuates in these experiences.

This work was evoked by carers coming into my home to get my grandparents ready for their day. This was a respite for me (or my aunty), as I would be up the previous night helping them. It would vary who came to our house, and the intimate experience of being showered or changed by a stranger was challenging adjustment. I was in my bedroom which was next to theirs, allowing me to hear if they needed anything. It was upon hearing their experience that I realised how fundamentally this human need and interaction is invisible and not reflected or mirrored in daily experiences.

Our pains are relative, and our thirsts, our doubts, our desires and our dreams all maintain and develop our sense of self. Our modern, technology-driven lives are steered and heightened by time expectation. In this busy modern culture, there is little space for connection and intimacy. This audience participatory performance is about being present, and aware of our emotions, (that may be conscious or unconscious), and sharing those with another.

We do not have time to say how we feel, or we are too busy to know how we feel; this is a nurturing space, to lie with each other and to be present in a calm, visible and warm space. I am lying on a bed, waiting for you to lay with me. I can hold you or just your hand, spoon you, or you can spoon me, or you can just lie next to me.

This work is an idyllic, inclusive performance space where the self is not a subject or instigator of desire or sex, but instead offers a calm, intimate, silent and warm space.

**By entering the space, you acknowledge that the work is performance and will be filmed and photographed for the artist’s documentation. If you do not wish to be filmed or photographed then, please do not enter the space.
Thank you.


Video by Jane Polkinghorn