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CIRCA 111 article
Birgit Salling Hansen
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| Birgit Hansen: In utero, 2004, performance stills, Pride 04 at Catalyst Arts; courtesy the artist. ‘Concrete text’ superimposed on the right-hand image is taken from the performance book. |
In Utero
For the Pride 04 show in Catalyst Arts, Belfast, nine concrete texts, tree-like, making up the book In Utero, were repeated / sung / recited, first in a twenty-minute performance on the opening night and then in a longer version, four loops, on 5 August 2004. Both performances took place in a black-painted corner of the dimmed Catalyst space - where the book was otherwise installed on a stand - holding the book, wearing a headlamp pointing into the corner, creating an oval, tunnel-like shape of light, naturally moving, enlarging and minimising as my body, more or less a silhouette only, backlit, was gently swaying back and forth while giving voice…
Halfway through one loop, during the text ‘it’, while continuously using up my breath till gasping, I would turn around, redirect the lamp onto the pages of the book (reflecting light onto my face) and continue reading like this till at the end of the ninth text, ‘the walls’, I would again turn around and face the corner, start over.
Birgit Salling Hansen is a Danish artist currently based in Belfast after finishing and MFA at the University of Ulster in 2004.
Article reproduced from CIRCA 111, Spring 2005, p.58
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