Day 11: final day final night

22nd Feb: With the three neighbourhood gatherings over (and the rhythms of the Cafe-con-piernas still vibrating in our bones) today was a day of relaxation and reflection and beginning to think about moving on from the residency.

With the converstaions from Coibunga still fresh in my mind, I had the urge to make my own markings of a "crop-circle".  I'd also wanted to play with the adobe mixture that Raquel had created, so combined the two desires and began to make some marks on the outside wall alongside where Pablo was working on his text-based mural.

The adobe had the texture of glue, and my final gesture at the end of the mark-making was to add some more fallen petals, one for each person on the residency, to one of the inner circles of the image.  

Making the circles was repetitive, as the adobe need multiple layers in some places because of the wall's tendency to crumble and fall away with the weight of the mixture.  As well as adding adobe I also deliberatly cut away parts of the wall.  I was reflecting on how we construct our boundaries and identities, as individuals and as groups, and how it is important to leave entrances and open spaces for the flow of  experience and exchange.

The process reminded me of a performance that Felipe had done the previous day, repetitively scrubbing the top of a wooden barrel with a rock covered in sandpaper, whose rasping noise conflicted with the music playing in the background. In our conversation afterwards about cyclical (or spiral-al) and lineal behaviours in life I was delighted to come to a slightly new perspective over this when Felipe spoke of not having to be just the one or the other, the two can co-exist.... interesting, a subtle difference in perspective, but something in the conversation touched me.

One sensation throughout the making of my  adobe 'crop circle' was that I was uncomfortable about having infringed perhaps on Pablo's space.  I never checked in with Pablo (not sure why?) but interestingly I woke up the next morning (after minimal sleep as a result of all the upheaval of the leaving party) with it clear in my mind that I needed to remove the image.  When I went to do so, half of the mud had already fallen in the drying, and I only had to brush the wall gently for the rest to fall.  The wall was left marked, but smooth.

I was left to reflect on the impression that each one of us leaves in a place or in a community or on individuals as we part and move away from one another onwards on our paths.

And this has been one of the most interesting aspects of this residency with Curatoria Forense, in the opportunities it has offered each of us artists to form friendships that have the potential to develop in ways that we cannot predict at this stage, but that will certainly lead to future exchanges and collaborations whose seeds were sewn in these 12 intense days in Villa Alegre....

..... fascinating! 

:-)