WATER #2 – Passage

A performance in two parts, distilling the elements of blood and water firstly as biological imperatives, secondly as symbols of family ties and release. The performance left a trace installation.

Part One shows the artist receiving saline into the left arm, whilst releasing blood from the right. Normal saline infusion contains 0.9% salt – sodium chloride (NaCl) – the same percentage that is in the human body. Blood accounts for approximately 8% of body weight, the average adult human containing 5 litres.

Part Two saw the artist tattooed with water in a design from an embroidery done by her great-aunt, Gwenda Eileen Mann, incomplete at the time of her death two years before the artist’s birth.

Tattooing with water creates what is called a bloodline. There is no way of knowing how long the mark will last, if at all.