Kelson. 

A spoken-word piece giving lie to the presumption of distinctly separate realms.  From the body of work All the Flesh of His Body (http://www.sarahblissart.com/index.cfm?p=i.0&cid=21)

Kelson

He Was Fed by a Bucket and a Rope
Sarah Bliss. 2012

Sound from Chapter 3 of my multimedia work, The Book of Layers: Animal, Vegetable Mineral.  

In Chapter 3, a field recording made in Ballinskelligs Bay, County Kerry, Ireland underpins a discussion about spiritual discernment and whether a calling to monastic life is an escape from the temptation of sin or an embrace of a life lived in deeper union with God.

The Book of Layers: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral is an installation of sound/photo/text/artifact explores placemaking, both from the perspective of the outsider artist-researcher, and from that of a Place’s inhabitants.  It is part of a longterm project investigating the unique expression of human relationship with place evident in spiritual practice, labor, folklore, mythology, architecture and culture in Ballinskelligs. The installation layers different collections gathered 85 years apart from this same location: my own artifacts, interviews and environmental audio recordings, photographs, and journal entries (all 2012); and Norwegian ethnomusicologist Ole Mork Sandvik’s 1927 photographs.

Sandvik was part of the early wave of researchers who insisted on the necessity of studying, collecting and preserving folk music, traditions and cultures.  His photos, now in the collection of the National Library of Norway, were made during a period of music collection in Cill Rialaig.  By documenting the people of Ballinskelligs at home and at work, they offer keen insight into patterns of land use, architecture, dress, and social and family culture.

Together, these layers of material speak to the profound connection of a people to place, topography and land; and the intimate relationship between humans, non-human animals, flora, and the compounded mix of animal/vegetable/mineral that we call soil.  At the same time, they highlight the desire to extend beyond the present the experience of uniqueness in a given place, while interrogating the power differentials that facilitate the process of documentation and dissemination.

He Was Fed By A Bucket And A Rope

A composed piece recorded in November 2013 in a sheep barn high in the Southern Upland hills of the Scottish Borders.  It’s “Sheep Dipping” Day, and two aging sheep farmers face the task of forcibly submerging each of 800 sheep in a deep circular vat filled to the brim with highly toxic organophosphates originally developed as chemical warfare agents (nerve gas).   Although proven no more effective in fighting parasites than nontoxic alternatives, the method is widely practiced throughout the UK, creating severe hazard to sheep, humans, soil and water.  As the dipping winds down, the farmers reminisce about a neighbor who used to be the village gravedigger.  Immediately after I finished recording, we were startled by panicked cries: one of the dipped and dripping sheep had stumbled crazily down the hill to throw itself into the river, where it immediately drowned.

In the Borders’ sparsely populated and rugged terrain shaped by 600 years of sheep farming, sheep pasture is being replaced by commercial forestry, and farmers such as these are likely the last of their breed.  The unique friendship of these two men, easily embracing both silence and speech, has been shaped by years of working side by side, confronting life and death.  The pride and pleasure they take in work well done is played out alongside farming practices that also damage the human and animal community of which they are a part.

This track is part of my film project "Covenant," which explores the legacy of the Scottish Reformation on the land and people of the Ettrick and Yarrow Valleys.  http://www.sarahblissart.com 

Sheep Dip

Audio from Chapter 1 of the Book of Layers: Nothing Happens Without You Lord.

This installation of sound/photo/text/artifact explores placemaking, both from the perspective of the outsider artist-researcher, and from that of a Place’s inhabitants.  It was developed during the second phase of a longterm project investigating the unique expression of human relationship with place evident in spiritual practice, labor, folklore, mythology, architecture and culture in Ballinskelligs, County Kerry, Ireland. 

Thousands of years of human relationship with this small piece of land, sea, and sky exist as strata of experience embedded in the land, much like the layers of decayed animal, vegetable and mineral matter that form the accumulating layers of peat in Ireland’s once-extensive bogs.  However, that experience and its artifacts are often taken for granted by today’s Irish, much the way the peat has been.  Many local residents have only a very limited knowledge of the rich cultural, archeological, religious, and environmental histories that have shaped their lives. 

This installation layers different collections gathered 85 years apart from this same location: artist Sarah Bliss’ 2012 artifacts; interviews and environmental audio recordings; photographs; and journal entries; and Norwegian ethnomusicologist Ole Mork Sandvik’s 1927 photographs.

Book of Layers, Chapter 1: Nothing Happens Without You Lord

Audio from Chapter 2 of the Book of Layers: If They Fell into the Sea

This installation of sound/photo/text/artifact explores placemaking, both from the perspective of the outsider artist-researcher, and from that of a Place’s inhabitants.  It was developed during the second phase of a longterm project investigating the unique expression of human relationship with place evident in spiritual practice, labor, folklore, mythology, architecture and culture in Ballinskelligs, County Kerry, Ireland. 

Thousands of years of human relationship with this small piece of land, sea, and sky exist as strata of experience embedded in the land, much like the layers of decayed animal, vegetable and mineral matter that form the accumulating layers of peat in Ireland’s once-extensive bogs.  However, that experience and its artifacts are often taken for granted by today’s Irish, much the way the peat has been.  Many local residents have only a very limited knowledge of the rich cultural, archeological, religious, and environmental histories that have shaped their lives. 

This installation layers different collections gathered 85 years apart from this same location: artist Sarah Bliss’ 2012 artifacts; interviews and environmental audio recordings; photographs; and journal entries; and Norwegian ethnomusicologist Ole Mork Sandvik’s 1927 photographs.

Book of Layers Chapter 2: If They Fell Into The Sea

The first century pre-Christian Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailgne and St. Patrick's fifth century Confessio provide an aural, linguistic and literary framework for considering language and the body as sites of slippage, transformation, fragility and power. Incubated during an extensive stay on the remote Gaeltacht (Gaelic-speaking) coast of southwest County Kerry, Ireland, the work probes the nature of the body; language's rootedness in place, body, and culture; and the impact of that language’s loss.

All the Flesh of His Body  brings into counterpoint Irish recitation of passages from the  Confessio with Irish and English passages from the Táin that describe the "warp spasms" that transform and mutate the body of warrior-hero Cu Chulainn as he prepares to enter battle to steal the stud bull Donn Cúailgne.  These recitations are woven in and out of field recordings of boars, bears, whales, birds, elk, alligators and bats, and underlaid by Arvo Part’s Magnificat.  This fluid mixing, and ultimate overtaking of the human by the animal, is emblematic of an Irish sensibility evolved in an archipelagic environment where sea, land and air ceaselessly arise and fall within the mist, merging and dissipating, continuously intermingling. 

The track makes use of recitation from St. Patrick’s Confessio (translated by Mac Philibin) in Irish by John Barry; recitation from the Táin Bó Cúailgne in both English (translations by Cecile O’Rahilly and Joseph Dunn) and Irish (translation by Ciara Nic Oscair) by Ciara Nic Oscair; field recordings of boars; field recordings from the Macaulay Library/Cornell of polar bear environment, humpback whale, right whale, the Palmyra Atoll, albatross, and American bittern; field recordings from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of elk, alligator, and bats; Arvo Part’s Magnificat performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tonu Kaljuste conducting (ECM Records).


All the Flesh of His Body

Sarah Bliss is a filmmaker and photographer with a background in religious studies, focusing on the complex relationships between body, place, language and memory.  Her practice is rooted in sensory ethnography, kinesthetic exploration, and historical research.  Her current project, Covenant, was launched during a residency sponsored by the Alchemy Film Festival in the remote, rural Scottish Borders. 

Continuing her research into the dynamic relationship between people and place, Covenant delves into the psychogeography of the Borders and the radical shifts in the cultural imaginarium effected there by the Scottish Reformation (1560 - late 1700s).  Working outward from research into the life and writings of her ancestor, Reverend John Livingston, a leading Covenanting minister in the Borders in the 1600s, Covenant investigates the ways in which Reformers’ ideas about the body, voice, and community were shaped by and are reflected in the land.  The far-reaching system of discipline used to control the body and its desires, the valorization of Word/text over sensual sacramentalism, and the apocalyptic theology of the extremist Covenanters are all sites for filmic investigation. 

Bliss received her Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Her work has been recognized by a 2013 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Sculpture/Installation; and she is the recipient of full fellowship awards from the Alchemy Film Festival in the Scottish Borders, Cill Rialaig Project in Ballinskelligs, Ireland, and the Vermont Studio Center. Recent solo shows were at the Sarah Doyle Gallery at Brown University, Rhode Island, and Interstitial Theatre in Seattle. Her work has been screened at the TransArt Film Festival in Berlin; Espaço Cultural ESPM in Porte Alegre, Brazil; the WORK Gallery in Detroit; and ArtJail in New York. She serves as Vice President of the Board of Temenos, an off-the-grid non-sectarian retreat center in rural Massachusetts.
External Links

http://www.SarahBlissArt.com

SarahBliss

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