My four weeks at the Robert Lord Cottage flew by; the first week recovering from a heavy cold, the second week getting settled in and seeing friends, the third week preparing for the System Change event, and final week preparing for and giving a lecture at the university. In amongst all of that, I did do a bit of writing – but not on the project that I’d originally proposed (a book about my cyberformance work). Instead, I’ve been working on the texts for the Magdalena Project installation at LAFLIS.
This project will be one of my mirror installations, this time a permanent installation as part of a wonderful theatrical archive documenting the work of Eugenio Barba, Julia Varley, Odin Teatret and the Third Theatre movement, of which the Magdalena Project is part. I’m gathering responses from women of the global Magdalena network to four questions, as both text and recorded voice. While at the cottage, I’ve been compiling their responses and starting to create an order. Then I will begin to animate the texts and create a soundscape from the voices. The responses are as diverse as the network – poetic to concrete, some a single word and others a short anecdote. I’m excited about how the installation will evolve.
Spending this time in Dunedin has reminded me again of what a vibrant, liveable small city it is, and the weather at the moment is superb. True, the weather can also be miserable and the public transport is unreliable; but there are so many great initiatives, creative people, excellent restaurants and beautiful gardens that make up for it. A number of old friends who like me left Dunedin long ago are now back, or planning to return, and I still have many good friends here. I even managed a catch up with the two OUSA presidents who came after me – Kirsty Graham and Grant Robertson.
Dunedin is where I was born and grew up, and now I feel the land calling me home. Yet, next week I’ll set off back to the other side of the world, with projects already starting to call to me … and the world in such a dizzying state of change, it feels very difficult to make any kinds of plans or promises. The Munich I’m returning to has just elected a new gay green mayor, ousting the conservatives for the first time in many decades; and just this morning the war in Iran seems to have been pulled back from the brink … all that death and destruction for what? And nobody is holding their breath that it won’t change again in the next moment.
The only response is to keep going; keep working, creating, writing, living. Keep taking care of each other.