The Rituals of being not being

TulcaLive artist in residence.
michaelmayhew.com

Michael Mayhew (Manchester) engages in a multiplicity of art forms that are always inspired by the environments he finds himself in.
His practice has seen him travel widely throughout the world, often
stepping into new and untested locations, testing the ground for the
development of new performance, practice and processes.
Mayhew makes live art which responds to a particular time and place.
Performances manifest according to what is happening in the world,
whom he met that day, what he’s heard or witnessed, what matters to
that particular audience in a particular place and time.


‘I was struck by the sense of yearning in it, you seeking to find/define yourself, your past, your path to this point, your acknowledgement of yourself as a conduit for other people's stories, a vessel other people pass through and even a yearning for the work itself, its ephemeral being, its lack of documentation, its here-now-gone tomorrowness.’
Terry O'Connor ~ Forced Entertainment


delivers

the rituals of being not being

as part of TulcaLive 2007

galway ~ ireland




I am leaving UK


12th November and start performances 19th to 23rd
prior to this
I have my head shaved whilst I deliver a lecture on 15th

‘for a moment inspired’


the 5 days of ritual are constructed into meeting 5 people per day

5 x 5 = 25

I listen to their stories - stories about people who have vanished from their lives.

at the end of each day I have parts of their language of loss and memory written onto my body

my body is then washed in the water gathered from the river Corrib - this is the river
that flows through Galway and into the Atlantic -

I gather this treated water and place it into casts of my body –

these moulds get placed into freezers

and left until water is ice solid

november 25th these ice bodies are placed onto an island called nuns island

we melt them - during this melting I will have 25 words - a word from each person -
tattooed onto my body - body and artist become a living archive of memory - and the
ink and blood from these words are released

arrive any point during this process - if you can -


Michael
X
part of the vanishing project
Vanished = to die away – from the Latin -

Mayhew is accompanied by Roshana Rubin ~ Mayhew

associate artist PANDA – honorary associate NRLA – artist in residence School of environment & development ~ University Manchester