the writer cleanses

2018 The Others, London

2022 Kaunas Picture Gallery (Part of ‘Performances POST’)

2022 Kėdainiai Bus Station (Part of FORMOS’22 Festival)

pulling the ink through my veins

I bleed onto borrowed space

a universe, anchored in a dot

tethered to the page

seeping into disappearance

I begin with 5 blank pages and 5 ink cartridges that puncture the bottom of the container of water suspended above the writing altar.

i. I take the first ink cartridge and water begins falling on the page.

ii. I write continuously until the cartridge is empty.

iii. repeat until all the cartridges are empty and all the pages are full.

the writer cleanses is a 5-hour durational performance that centres the action of psychological cleansing into (as opposed to away from) through stream-of-consciousness writing as a way to evoke certain shameful memories and experiences into public dialogue, making friends with them in the process.

Each iteration of the performance navigates different themes and in prior performances, I have devoted pages to all the places I’ve called home in my life, and in another, to different parts of my body.

Inside the blur of the disappearing text on the page, I ask audiences to ‘read’ the text I’m producing through my emotions while I write. This kind of endurance writing creates a hypnotic state that leads to intense, cathartic bursts of emotion. I invite the audience to linger at the border of my inside, witnessing a process that typically happens privately, swimming between the words and water on the page.

Photos by Holly Revell, Akvilė Matulaitytė, Vaida Tamoševičiūtė, laura fernández antolín.