Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Rivers Arms

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Photos of the temporary performance and installation Mater Matrix Mother and Medium, a collaboration between artist Mandy Greer, choreographer/dancer Zoe Scofield, and musician and friend of the P.S. Morgan Henderson (Blood Brothers, Past Lives).

Henderson and Scofield rehearse

From Mandy Greer's description of the project:
Mater Matrix Mother and Medium began with the creation of a 200 ft.- long fiber river, created in part through a series of over 30 community events all over Seattle, where I [Mandy Greer] taught anyone willing to learn, how to crochet. I then took the fiber “pools” into the forest of Camp Long and spent nearly six weeks on a ladder crocheting the river into the trees, flowing from 25 feet up in the tree canopy to nearly touching the forest floor.

When we arrived for the performance last Thursday evening in West Seattle, Zoe Scofield was totally obscured inside what looked like a gigantic ball of fabric and knots at the end of the crocheted river. As Morgan's music built – he played a variety of instruments, including the clarinet and a weird little megaphone contraption – she unwrapped herself and came alive in the woods.

If it sounds like some hippy stuff, well, so be it – but I found Mater Matrix Mother and Medium to be one of the more complex 'nature-inspired' works of art I've seen, and a beautiful piece in both vision and sound. It's up through the end of the month August 23rd at Camp Long (5200 35th Ave SW in West Seattle), and definitely worth the trip, even without the performance element.

More info here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Strath
Thank you for the post! I love the images of the actual performance. I had intended to take photographs myself that night, but was so crazy with it all I forgot. Do you think I could get some copies from you. I did have some filming going on, but I really love the quality of the snaps I'm seeing from inside the crowd by various people. It was truly an inspiring adventure working Morgan and Zoe, all of us were a bit out of our element. I'm so pleased that it did work for so many. Also, the installation element will now be up through the Arts in Nature Festival on Aug 22-23 at Camp Long.

Thanks again for the mention
Mandy Greer

Strath said...

Hey Mandy, thank you! Please feel free to grab the photos directly from the blog, and I'll also post them to the MMM Flickr pool as well – I don't have your email but you can hit me up at strath [at] pacific-standard.com if you want.