week one
Gyun Hur + Louise Tate
Views from the garden in Chattanooga, Tennessee (left)
Wave Hill Garden in Bronx, New york (center and right)
Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 9:17am
This morning, while driving, I woke up from a terrifying dream and found myself soaked in the thick fog surrounding the Raccoon Mountains. Son and daughter forever asleep in my dark hours, they came and went. Here I am and no one is here.
I raise the volume on my Bose headphones. Fela Kuti’s “Water no get enemy” smoothens my shoulder knots and a slight ache I feel on the right side of my wrist. My eyes twitch a bit, but my spirit relaxes with the lyrics. Slowly, I start moving.
T'o ba fe lo we omi l'o ma'lo
If you want go wash, a water you go useT'o ba fe se'be omi l'o ma'lo
If you want cook soup, a water you go useT'o ri ba n'gbona o omi l'ero re
If your head dey hot, a water go cool onT'omo ba n'dagba omi l'o ma'lo
If your child dey grow, a water he go use
Blocking out the sound of a crane digging rocks and dirt off the ground in view by my studio, I am just trying to get my mind back. With no audience, no one around to listen to me, or cry with me, to assure me of the future I do not care to know of, I am just trying to stay intact.
Where are you?
Are you here?
Where are you?
Yes, mama, I am here.
Tell me your story again. I am listening.
I have another cup of coffee to finish,
So
Tell me.
Tell me everything.
About your dad’s passing
About a clunk of sugar and marianna you chewed to stop getting sick
And how your son survived
And how your gold saved you.
Tell me.
Tell me everything.
I am here.
- Gyun Hur
so we can be near, 2021, 2 days private performance in the installation at Sunroom Project Space, wave hill, new york. a screenshot of video documentation by the artist.
Courtesy of the artist and wave hill.
Views from the garden in Modanville, NSW, Australia.
21 February, 2021
She’d learnt many things while her mother died: how the correct placement of a pillow can determine human happiness; that the angle of a bed can render someone awake or asleep; that bodily fluids are no longer kept safely contained, but make new journeys through tubes and bags into the world. It’s not that she didn’t feel a deep sadness—she did—but that she felt numbed out like a fish on a slab of ice at the fishermen’s co-op.
She spent a lot of time drinking tea that tasted mildly of antiseptic into which she dunked dry Arnott’s Scotch Fingers until they became soggy crumbs, crumbs that floated down to the depths of her mug where they remained untouched by her pursed lips. Sometimes she smuggled packets of sweet biscuits out of the hospital to feed to her dog and, when he began to turn his nose up at them, to the sleek plump pigeons that squabbled, lunged and gobbled.
She had never imagined herself here, sitting beside her mother and feeling so singularly alone. A hospital is a contradiction. It is a lively, and a lonely, place. It is the opposite of a garden that can appear as still as a painting, yet is constantly animated by a plethora of life.
They had sat in the garden together only recently, as they drank tea and shared a slice of plum cake. Their spoons clinked against the china plate, and time felt stretchy like fresh strands of spaghetti. The mist rolled in and the air was thick and heavy. They spent many moments sitting beside the bees that were busying themselves amongst the flowers, silent and content in each other’s company. Feeling pensive, they looked out over the valley and their thoughts swept out into the great expanse of greenery. Many soft and wet tears would flow back into that soil.
The garden would continue to nurture her after her mother was admitted to hospital. At first for a few days, and then for the rest of her days.
- Louise Tate
