A watery big adventure with Bristol Biennial

Bristol waterways cr Judy DarleyBristol Biennial begins today, with a programme of peculiar, beautiful, imaginative and immersive events taking place across the city.

I’m really happy to have been chosen as one of 12 artists taking part in The Floating, a collaborative writing project taking place on the Bristol’s waterways, and set to culminate in a series of works inspired by the boat journey. Excitingly, these will then be published “in an experimental way” along the harbourside where you’ll be able to see them throughout the week of Bristol Biennial.

The project is being masterminded by graphic designers Conway and Young and writer Amy Spencer. It’s the first time I’ve been involved in anything quite like this, and I’m buzzing with anticipation!

The Floating is just one of an array of fabulously inventive happenings, many of which are free to experience. Find out more about Bristol Biennial and The Floating.

 

Theatre review – MINE

Beneath the serene elegance of Goldney Hall’s gardens, a savage catacomb awaits – a mine filled with gods, lions and bleeding crystals, where seeping damp reminds imprisoned shells of what they’ve lost.

This is the place Holly Corfield Carr leads her audience into, with a powerful piece of immersive theatre riddled through with poetry.

MINE Lions

Written to fit and reflect its setting, the piece begins in warm September sunlight as Holly talks of time and hands each of us a pebble that represents it. We’ve given small glowing lanterns to carry, and follow her across the emerald lawns into the shadowy shell grotto.

It’s a wonderful opportunity to glimpse a place seldom seen, with Holly’s visually evocative poetry adding resonance to the enchantments of the crystal-crowded caves, a thundering unexpected waterfall – a “strange heavenly halfway.”

With only six audience-members, or rather, guests, at each performance, the feel is distinctly intimate, and Holly addresses us each in turn as she tells tales that bring in myth, history, botany, and the wonderings of the human heart. She invites us to choose cards and read fragments of verse aloud, entrenching us deep in the language of the grotto.

“molars,
memories
of when we
were young,
his smell
amongst
the moss,”

There are so many words, pouring from Holly’s mouth, and from our own, whilst surrounded by the glimmering roars of coral, water and sculpture, that it’s impossible to take in every scrap. Thankfully Holly has produced a beautiful pamphlet, published by Spike Island, to take away from the performance, and savour in your own time.

Fortunate, really, as Holly makes us relinquish the pebbles she’s given us:

“Because, even now, time is up.
The stone you hold is moving, is sand at your hand.”

This is a performance about the past, both human and geological, and how it hides, hushed, in the ground beneath our feet.

MINE is part of Bristol Biennial, a festival of art.

Holly Corfield Carr

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.