MARY-JO GILLIGAN

*The Spirit of the Place

 

 

I could see a tall sliver of frothy motion through the slatted angle of two doors ajar and sensed the rub of the river soaking inland underfoot. All I heard was the roar of water ricocheting echoes off the cement-floored kitchen, past the ancient monk's water font and the oven doors, past the cutlery and the peeling paint. The dust of riverbed residue waited undisturbed beneath the cooker, and cracked like brown savannah on porcelain plates shelved waist high. Dust and dry echoes... but it was still damp, just, barely. The air was thick with tiny organisms. Molds and fungus felt religous, a constant presence, a millionspore reminder of a fullness, an aliveness, in the dead stillness of the kitchen.  

 

Later we would watch the river unlit, us two strangers in the dark, with its cold touch on our foreheads where the water was daubed to show the outside air. The night felt dense with listening since the slow procession from the street to kitchen with a metal kettle held aloft, full of water hauled up over the bridge. (Ringing glass mixing bowls and cassarole dishes, like bells. One red brick pulled out of the clean white glaze above the fireplace, leaving a gaping question. Water, water, spit and water. Breath, vapour, mist, flood. Clattering granite. Massaging stone and wicking water through concrete blocks. Pouring light up to the floodline. Sucking, swilling, singing the cut-glass tone. Trapping mist and spilling bursts of wet.)  

 

Now the coping stone waits, grooved for another body to lean and hang towards the big black sound surging constantly.

 

 

 

*Notes from on site enquiries leading to [1]The Inexpressible Experience of the Damp World, a site specific performance that explored the shifting borders and overlaps between the domestic architectural space, the natural landscape and the powerfuly charged undercurrent of spirituality in the everyday world.

 

Live performance, duration: 35 mins.

Materials: granite blocks, concrete blocks, [2]fired brick, [3]river water, spit, glass kitchen bowls, kettle, electric light, washing line rope, dust, mold, silk and voice).