A Walk on March 5th, #ThreadandWord

@espacio gallery for Threads Exhibition curated by the Artists Pool

Rope knotted by Robert Zammit Pace
who joined the walk through attending the PV at Espacio.

I think you will agree that the rope on the right carries a wonderful array of knots.

I hope the photos that follow of the sites visited and some of the poetry we read,
 will give you a flavour of the walk.

Welcome at Espacio

choosing ropes

So we began with

A Walking Yoga Sutra*
 for Thread and Word
Julia Riddiough
Read by Elspeth Penfold

 Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutra - Book 1:20 *Sanskrit sūtra “thread”

Shraddha-virya-smrti-samadhi-prajna-purvakah itaresham

Read by Virginia Fitch:

'The weaver sees her fiber as the poet sees her word.
The thread feels the hand, as the word feels the tounge. 

Structures of feeling in the double sense of sensing and signifying,
the word and the thread feel our passing.'
(Cecilia Vicuña)

Shared reading with Hazel Mountford

 'Ponchos, llijllas, aksus, winchas, chuspas and chumpis are beings
who feel 

and every being who feels walks covered in signs. 

"The body given entirely to the function of signifying." 

Helen Peacock introducing "What is Left Behind

'Acts of union and separation. 
The word is silence and sound.
The thread, fullness and emptiness'.
(Cecilia Vicuña)                                                                                                                                           René Daumal

                                                                                      A textile is "in the state of being textile": awaska.
                                                                                      (Cecilia Vicuña)

Helen's Hankie to be de-threaded en-route

Virginia Fitch, next to the Rope Sculpture

Virginia Fitch Reading:

 'And the energy of the movement has a name and a direction: lluq'i,to the left, paña, to the right. A direction is a meaning and the twisting of the thread transmits knowledge and information. The last two movements of a fiber should be in opposition: a fiber is made of two strands lluq'i and paña.'

(Cecilia Vicuña)

Helen reading by the decorated railings opposite Shoredtich station
Padlocks and love signifiers, and...chilean flags.

Helen Peacock:

'In the Andes, the language itself, Quechua, is a cord of twisted straw,
two people making love, different fibers united. 

To weave a design is pallay, to raise the fibers, to pick them up.'
(Cecilia Vicuña)

Knotting while reading Keith Grossmith's 'The Word is the Thread'

6. Billie introducing Keith Grossmith’s Poem

A AVi

readi. Billie 

The Word is the Thread

A poem by Keith Grossmith written for this walk.

Read by Virginia Fitch , in the tunnel next to Shoreditch

Station.

(full text on my website)

'When I count, there are only you and I together

  The knotting seems to have taken on a sense of purpose

   But when I look ahead up the white road

   There is always another one walking beside you

   Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

   O do not know whether a man or a woman

•   But who is that on the other side of you?’

 ( TS Eliot  The Waste Land)


read in German by Veronika Marsh, reflecting on our journey, with an impromptu performance by Sheelah Mahalath Bewley in English.

readin

Boat Sculpture , Bishop's Square
referencing Eliots use of the Mythic Method .
read by Billie                                                         

 





iv Death 
by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

And the profit and loss.

                                    A current under sea

Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell

He passed the stages of his age and youth

Entering the whirlpool.

                                                                                     
  Gentile or Jew

                                                                                      
 O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

                                                                                      
 Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as

                                                                                       You.                                                 (TS Eliot)

Collaborating through walking and knotting

Right,reflecting and knotting during the performance

 led by Esperanza Gomez-Carrera of 'Voices':

A simultaneous reading in 4 languages, capturing the rhythm , strength and weight of the words, as performed in poetry reading at the Dada Festival in Paris in 1920.

The words:' A word is both root and suffix : two antithetical 

meanings in one. 

The word and the thread behave as processes in the cosmos. 

The process is a language and a woven design is a process re-

presenting itself. 

"An axis of reflection," says Mary Frame: "the serpentine 

attributes are images of the fabric structure," 

The twisted strands become serpents

and the crossing of darkness and light, a diamond star.'   (Cecilia Vicuña)

The Voices:

( Esperanza Gomez Carrera , Spanish, Virginia Fitch, English, Naya Eleftheriou, Greek,Sara Angelucci, Italian)

Jill Rock

"Sprang is a weftless technique, a  reciprocal action whereby the
interworking of adjacent elements with the fingers duplicates itself 

above and below the working area." 

A performance of a section Cecilia Vicuña's poem  by Jill Rock-  a narrative placing women's games and traditions using threads and ribbons, "Sprang" Cats Cradle, as a way of communicating across languages and cultures. 

Allan Struthers

Seen Not Heard: The Choice of Listening to 


Objects

A performance by Allan Struthers 

@SUNRISE. EAST. JULY / SUNRISE. EAST. OCTOBER

Ugo Rondinone 

(a copy of the full text can be found on my website.)

Left, as we celebrated Lizi Sanchez's Cadenetas' on the trees at  the Leadenhall building,
a reading by Billie of Judy Dermott's text, written for this walk:

'Vicuña and Women Centred Modernism'

( also on my website)

And the rain came and the hail came , but we ploughed on. Sadly the Leadenhall lifts were not moving, but we were not deterred.

Right, Virginia Fitch reading:
                                                                                                   'Word is thread and the thread is language. Non-linear body.

A line associated to other lines. 
A word once written risks becoming linear,
but word and thread exist on another dimensional plane. .

Vibratory forms in space and in time'
(Cecilia Vicuña )

Left,desperately seeking shelter to listen to:

 Naya Eleftheriou's reading of 'Ithaca', some of the group spotted a rainbow on a wall. I'm sure it ties in with the mythic method and we can all look forward to a wonderful future following Julia's Yoga Sutra:

'Tap into your inner strength to celebrate all the threads that bring us together to connect'

(the full text is on my website)

and so to Leadenhall Market, a pause to look at Lizi's 'Cadenetas' and

Esperanza's rope, doing and undoing on the walk.

                                                                 Virginia Fitch's reading from Word
                                                                  and Thread:

' Is the word the conducting thread, or does thread conduct the word-
making? 

Both lead to the centre of memory, a way of uniting and connecting. 

A word carries another word as thread searches for thread. 

A word is pregnant with other words and a thread contains
other threads within its interior. '

(Cecilia Vicuña)

For copies of the texts , readings and performances please visit my website : http://elspeth-billie-penfold.com/thread-and-word-texts-used-in-walk

With sincere thanks to all who came, walked performed and made this walk happen. 

and also a thank you to Jennifer Deakin who provided  most of the photographs ( the rubbish ones are mine)

Hasta la próxima,

 see you in Margate or maybe Edinburgh!