Bodhi Khaya Artist Residency 2023

The residency started with a wayfarer’s exploration of the landscape. Initial days were dedicated to wandering, sensing, listening, feeling, and absorbing. I found resonance with the flowing rivers, the Milkwood forest, and the fields of grasses and wildflowers, but what captured me most was the quarry. From the moment I touched the clay-rich soils and rinsed my hands in the pond reflecting the sky, I knew I would spend a lot of time here. I returned the following days, collecting fallen clay ‘stones’ from the quarry walls. I meditatively separated the layers into red, yellow, and white. Breaking the stones into finer pieces, I soaked them in buckets. Lastly, I transferred the mixture into pillowcases to drain overnight, yielding malleable clay.

Spending time with the clay was like sitting with history. The geological time of its existence made my own feel brief. Contemplating humanity’s fleeting presence on Earth and the exploitation of this resource-laden land, I recognised the weight of history within the clay and within these lands. This weight grew heavier as I pondered the future, both social and environmental. The clay’s heaviness felt similar to that of the stone in my stomach as I considered these matters. Having the clay, this history, in my hands, I considered the power I have to shape it, to transform and influence its possible futures.

My work Weight/Wait reflects this heaviness and the need for resolution. In this series of work, I shaped the clay into stone-like shapes, tied them onto a string, and suspended them over the quarry pond. Ever-so-slowly, the weight of the clay pulls down, the tension of string starting to cut through it. I observe in suspense as the string cuts deeper and deeper; waiting for resolution. Over this time, they clay seems to change from stone to something softer – a heart, a brain, a stomach. Finally, the string cuts through completely, the clay landing into the water with a ‘plop’. The string starts to settle as the clay dissolves into the waters of the place it came from.

Chrisel Attewell, video stills from Weight/Wait, 2023 © Chrisél Attewell

The remainder of the clay I processed, I used in a collaborative performance called Touching Clouds. In this work, I invited the other artists on the residency to walk with me into the cold water of the pond in the quarry. Together, we represent much of the people from this land. We bring together a diversity of culture, generations, and shared histories. The cold of the water is seeping into our bodies, we feel its hug, its resistance, its flow. The sun attempts to warm our faces.

We move in the water, forming a circle, then we close our eyes, entering our awareness. I begin my holding a large lump of clay in my hands, sensing it, feeling it, and passing it on the person next to me. The clay slowly moves between our hands. We have use sound and touch to sense the whereabouts of the clay and when it will return to our hands. Engaging with the clay, eyes closed, each person can feel how the shape of the clay changed along the circle, how each person made their mark. There are questions and choices that arise these moments;

What are we sharing?
Is it knowledge, emotion, history, presence?
How are we sharing?

How are we receiving?

What are we learning from this soil?

Are we discovering meaning amongst each other?

Do we appreciate what is passed down to us, or are we sceptical of it?

Do we care for it, nurture it, or neglect it?

In which ways do we pass it on to the next person?

How much of it is left on our hands?

How much is consumed by our bodies, or returned to the water to dissolve?

Is the water cooling you, hugging you, resisting you, or flowing with you?

Are you resisting the water of flowing with it?

Are we?

To which places do the clay take you?
Do you feel connected to the immense history it?
Are you anxious about dropping it, shaping it, breaking it?

Do you feel the need to press into it, mould it, leave your trace deeper, or do you contain it, trying to reserve its shape?

Are you breathing in as you receive and breathing out as you let go, or are you inhaling as you release, holding a breath in anticipation?

Do you grief for the lost bits?

You can hear when bits of clay fall to the water, and with each passing the clay becomes smaller as it leaves traces on our hands and bodies. The performance ends when the clay has been fully consumed by our bodies and the water. It recalls the cycle of life; we arrive, we consume, we shape, we learn, we share, we leave our mark, and we return to the Earth. Time is at its essence, and of the essence.

As much as the work is about our physical relation to the Earth and each other, it’s also about the intangible. It’s about the spaces between us and aspects of ourselves that feel out of reach. It’s about rekindling to our spiritual connection to the Earth and to each other. It’s our attempt to reach across time and space, like the swirling bits of clay that dance in the clouds of the water’s reflection.