subversive topiary

By Olivia Ronan

Description

subversive topiary actively entangles improvisation, haptic movement, and ecology. It is directed by the present moment as well as the aftermath and afterlife of trees.

It is formed in response to tree mortality, deforestation, flooding and a search for renewal along the San Lorenzo River floodplain . In picking up sticks the body and corresponding movements and sounds are shaped and scored by sticks, blurring and obscuring the line between person, place, thing, tool, and instrument. The repercussions of haptic movement becoming percussion mixed with field recordings. A laborious, cyclical on-the-point-of-collapse-sculpture drifting between maintenance and disasssemblage . You are invited to engage in the process of gathering from many different vantage points; as a futile labor, improvised score, a moving meditation and an open ended discourse questioning understandings of topos—i.e., place.