the active archive
creative projects and residencies
a temporal history of Annemarie Murland's art practice
THE SELKIE He loves her with dark eyes. She knows that in the fractured frame of a door closed shut, where rests her skin, homage to a life long lost lies flat Selkie mistress meditates silent vespers towards the gentile island whose gaze is wide so that she cannot swim over. And as sunlit ice breaks over waters edge her eyes caste downward. Her season has arrived. Close to the lips of wake, she sighs; Atlantis no more, echo’s her coainadh Lamenting loss sounds crossover the Minch as dark eyes dart beneath surfaces wet, in faith they tell nothing of loss In the silence of the abyss, where she waits, the dulce music plays as she is called to mate Bodhran beats of waves gently lap against her skin, where docking love leaves her bare and open like the Minch that separates her from her ain Swollen she rises to dive beneath waters dark to penetrate pillows of pleasure. Bottomless and waterlogged she wavers for her centre the sea, as rank smells fill the air and her waters petrify both stone and heart to her place in memory where in still silence she strokes her hide in mortal sleep In drowning love, detritus, shame recovers in the sunken salt water of mother’s tears that flow freely down skint pelt that hangs beyond fractured door, unopened Beyond season she arrives where it all began, the Minch Her love lays wide and deep across far sea to sounds without comfort Delivered, her freedom is wet as new born sounds attached to her mother tongue she enters the waters edge where the blue swell calls her to the sea and her coainadh wakes Dr Annemarie Murland Coainadh: Keening: A Gaelic term to describe loss through a lament. Minch: A stretch of water, Scottish term. Bodhran: A traditional Celtic Drum Ain: Belonging to her |
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ARTIST IN RESIDENCE, CALVERY MATER HOSPICEMarking Time and Place Project: November 2014 - November 2015. Artist in Residence Dr Annemarie Murland Weaving Stories Yet Untold [Annemarie Murland and Marika Osmotherly] The Marking Time and Place Project, 2014/15 at the Calvery Mater Hospice, Newcastle, NSW Australia delivered, as part of its program a series of works of art that were the result of a collaboration between the patients and visitors to the Fig Tree Room, a neutral space at the Hospice. The aim of the project was to establish a point of contact for patients, family, friends, staff and visitors at the Fig Tree Room to exchange, engage and enjoy the process of making to record the self in time and place. An act of sharing memories, whether of a person, time or place, that was sometimes anonymous, provided a plethora of private messages, written across strips of paper and then woven into a grid-like map. The act of weaving paper, a tactile surface, into a work of art was to illustrate a sense of unity and connectedness and to create a memory of each other in time and space. |