tihtemsi

'this is how the earth must see itself', is a collaborative guided performance and ceramic installation by Yvette Bathgate and Jake Shepherd. The work takes its title from an excerpt of text from Nan Shepherds book, The Living Mountain. We guided the audience through a reiteration of a performance - it is not an original piece and it has been passed on between people, inevitably shifting and changing with each reiteration, Yvette first learned it from artist Ash McNaughton in 2017. This version replaced the stone with clay gathered from paljassare and paired it with a reading. The clay is around 500million years old and has resisted hardening into rock, staying soft. The group collectively held the clay, tuning in and supporting each other to keep it in the air. Throughout this we read excerpts from the living mountain while sat on the ancient granite that surrounded them, brought to Aegna in the melt of the last ice age.
Ceramics, also with excerpts of the text, are placed around the site leaving a trace of this guided performance for the duration of the exhibition. The bisque fired pieces over time will dissolve and can be returned back into the land.