live performance, video and fabric based installation
"The Sigh of Velvet" was conceived, created and performed during an artist residency at Zaratan, Lisbon, Portugal, February 2020.
It consisted of a video and fabric based installation and live performance investigating the physical sensations and emotional states of longing, memory, submersion, and the ocean. The velvet used in this work once belonged to Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999) known as the 'queen of Fado'. Fado is a melancholic Portuguese musical tradition often associated with longing and the sea. The velvet was gifted to me through a series of synchronistic events.
"Scream out the sea, moan out the wind
Your gaze my torment
Cry the moon, golden flower
Honeysuckle, dawn…"
"Flor de Lua" by O.A. Ramos sung by Amália Rodrigues
The Sigh of Velvet - clip
Live performance still during the 30 min performance I alternated between stitching a lemon out of velvet that belonged to Amália Rodrigues and rubbing two yellow shells together- stitching a velvet lemon
Live performance still rubbing two yellow sea shells found in Caparica together to invoke a meditative state and the sound of ocean waves
stitched velvet lemon the performance was complete when I had finished sewing the lemon and held it up to the audience in a gesture of offering
Live performance still projected video, velvet installation
