FASCIA
2020
Fascia, 2020, digital video, 01:20 duration (no sound).
One definition of the term FASCIA, refers to a band or sheet of connective tissue beneath the skin that attaches, stabilizes, encloses, and separates muscles and other internal organs – Fascia is consequently flexible and able to resist great unidirectional tension forces.
In this looping video work, a closely cropped dual portrait is presented that reveals two opposite states simultaneously – active and reflective, exterior and interior, alpha and beta. Over the duration of the video, a third element is introduced to draw the viewer into a consideration of the dichotomy.
As humans, it seems we are very interested in finding categorizations to put both ourselves and others into that help us make sense of how things work. I am an introvert. I am an extrovert. We are Spirit, Soul, and Body. He is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. While these categorizations may be correct and helpful to determine specific identities and interpretations – it seems that at times we can somehow miss the integration of the categorizations that we determine, we overlook their inter-connectedness, we fail to see the ‘fascia’ that holds all the inner-parts together, yet also enables their independence and sovereignty.
Now, more than ever we must look to the unifying elements of our existence that enable both connectedness and authenticity so that we can become whole. One body, many parts.
Cry
2020
Cry, 2020, collected digital video collage (video still), 01’00 duration.
A Reflection in response to Station 8 of the Stations of the Cross:
Station #8 directly references the conversation and prophetic statement made by Jesus to a group of women he encountered on his journey to the crucifixion. This encounter is recorded in the book of Luke, Chapter 23, from verse 27.
Great crowds trailed along behind, including many grief-stricken women. But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’ People will beg the mountains to fall on them and the hills to bury them. For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?
Seeing the distress of these women, Jesus’ thoughts were not with his own plight, for he had already fully surrendered to this purpose and cause. Rather, his concern lay with the distress that would follow in the ages to come. He shifted the focus
of their grief from the immediate situation at hand to weep instead for what they themselves and their children would face. To what time was Christ referring?
What could possibly be more pressing than the amount of pain and anguish he
was experiencing at that moment of time? Many have speculated about what other historical event this message pointed to, but perhaps his prophecy simply lamented the depravity and injustice that all humanity is capable of? If he, as the son of God, the ‘green tree’, is treated without mercy and compassion, how then would we treat one another in times of distress, conflict and difference?
Upon first reading, this video work presents a young woman crying as if in direct reference to the grief of the ‘daughters of Jerusalem’. However, we soon realise that her distress relates to difficulties in her own personal life – specifically, a relationship ending. Yet, as she lies on her bed and cries into the camera, she chooses to self-publish her emotional breakdown to the masses via a YouTube channel. In direct contrast to the attitude of Christ who in his time of suffering pointed beyond himself to the suffering of others, she points to herself. ‘She’, anonymous in this context, becomes a symbol of a culture raised on the spectacle of self absorption and self obsession. That is our culture, trapped in the pursuit of
self-gratification and over-sharing emerging from the very deep burden of needing to be ‘seen’. And yet, Christ did see her. From under the weight of a cross and through the blood and dirt, he saw her, he saw us, and keenly identified with every pain, sorrow or hurt that we would ever experience. He also saw our culture of self- centeredness that is always in pursuit of being the ‘I AM’ – and in that moment he demonstrated a different way.
Over the duration of the video, ‘she’, the symbol of all of our emotional neediness, begins to dis-align and run out-of-time with each section of the video. While already horizontally divided to emphasise the eyes and the mouth, over time the misaligned trajectory of the video culminates in a disorder where it is impossible to decipher which is the authentic (e)motion, movement, or action, and which is the ‘mimicked’ or the echo. While we wait for some conclusion or resolution to the discord that will never eventuate, the words of Jesus still find their mark – Don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves.
“We all eventually discover that our hearts and souls are not fed at the trough of self-seeking.” Richard Rohr
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