Stories from the Body #10
Cementa Turns 10, Kandos
11 March 2023
It has been quite a tug to the strings of self-commitment !already!, staying with the Stories from the Body concept as a lifetime’s series. The intention was for it to act as a vehicle for retracing (imaginatively and through fragmented body-memory) familial stories, migration (horror) stories, folklore that were embedded in particular landscapes of my hometown and the deep influences that came from living in South East Asia, the region of my birthplace.
However to be clearer, the composition and dynamic structures that reside within the techniques of the West Javanese Pancha Tanmantra, BodyWeather image-work, action performance art principles, movement and music improvisation processes are continually being experimented with, and integrated into this vehicle.
I also use this concept series to sometimes highlight ordinary physical habits that would be perceived as the ‘abject body’ in some cultures; which may elicit feelings of disgust or shame, for example.
Materials used: tall stool, dark food paste, and memories of a scene while sitting with the bobohizan and village headman near Kampung Seminyak, in Sabah (East Malaysia, Malaysian Borneo region).
Photos below by Alan Schacher.
