Performances - Heather_Lyon_Art_Portfolio

THE WEIGHT OF WATER
1 min clip of 25 min live performance at Cynthia Winings Gallery, Blue Hill, Maine
October 2021
filmed by Luke Myers

"The Weight of Water" is a durational performance, an interaction between my body and 75 pounds of dark blue sand. The weight of the sand corresponds to the weight of the water content of my body and is a manifestation of the unknowable, the void. I invite the viewers to become empathetic witnesses to my contemplative movement of and with the sand. The slippage of sand vibrates and expands into the void and from that emerges pattern and form. This work is in resonance with my recent paintings of whirlpools, a response to the pull of the sublime.

GLOAMING
collaboration with Riley Watts
rough cut of 1.5 hour live performance at the "Gathering Stones" by Jesse Salisbury, August 2021 for "Gathering Resilience" curated by Tessa Greene O'Brien, TEMPOart, Portland, Maine
filmed by Juliette Sutherland

From the TEMPOart website:

Gloaming refers to the transitional time between day at night – the liminal space between the light of wakefulness and the dark of a sleeping world. You’ll be invited to participate in a short meditation followed by a performance in a distinct atmosphere energized by the performers and their connection. Each stone will be activated as a choreographic “station” that will guide you toward empathetic healing after an intense year.

UNRAVEL - For Jan - clip
4 hour durational performance with live feed - Portland, Maine
2019 live feed video work by Susan Bickford
Wool. Ash. Salt. Body.
Material holds memory.The act of deconstruction is a form of release, transmutation and a method for understanding. By unmaking the pattern, the organizing principle is dissolved, but the matter remains, containing memory. Over time, memory looses legibility, but exists as an imprint, as a crimp, as a pile of disorder. To unravel is to tease apart, to observe closely, to let go. In grief, reality is blurred and memory becomes fluid. Once touched, acted upon, loved, the body is altered forever.

MILK - clip
12 min performance - Pinea-Linea Residency, Rota, Spain
2017
Milk from the body of a mother - I am seated in a tower once belonging to a convent that was the only built structure remaining after a tsunami devastated the town in the 1700’s. The tower is a symbol of what withstands, of what endures, in the face of disaster. I very slowly, and with great concentration, pour milk over my head. This literally and metaphorically nourishing, wholesome material bathes and soaks my face, hair and garment, and pools onto the floor. The performance is complete when I lower the empty bowl to the floor.

UNEARTHING - clip
2.5 hour durational performance
Tbilisi History Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia
2017
This durational performance took place at the Tbilisi History Museum as part of “Living Room III” during “Artisterium 10." I was invited to work 'in-situ' responding to the site and collection. Located on the top floor of the museum, I discovered a large flower pot filled with soil and a tall thin pedestal within an arched alcove. Thinking about the problematics of preservation, display, ritual, and the passage of time, I engaged with these 'found' materials, soil from the land, pedestal used for exhibitions yet seemingly abandoned, architecture of the space. My objective was to move, with slow concentrated repeated movement, all of the soil with my cupped hands, from the flower pot onto the pedestal; a caring, deliberate, yet futile gesture. Inevitably, the soil fell from the pedestal, spilling onto the floor creating a landscape of brown earth around the base of the pedestal and under my feet. I explored the expansion and contraction of time, shifting my perception of realty through presence. Slowing down my own movements, heightening my awareness of body, breath, materials, sounds, light. I brought the viewer along with me as they too slowed down to witness. The performance ended when all of the soil had been moved out of the pot, onto the pedestal and floor.