"The Pitt Rivers Museum.is filled with tens of thousands of treasures reflecting the diversity and richness of cultures from all over the world. My research could be never ending" Marina Abramovic
On my visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum amongst the many cabinets and draws was an instalation by performance artist Abramovic who visited the museum in 2021 for a research residency in preparation for an exhibition at Modern Art Oxford. That is now on show at Pitt Rivers.
"Witch ladder" is a video instalation along with a set of drawings.
The work is a responsive work to items in the museum. She describes the objects as choosing her and was heavily focused on items associated with magic, rites of passage and transformation. As well as the witch's ladder she chose a total of 13 items to interact with.
Much of her perfomative work is around energy. The video performance absence and presence explores the enery left begind in an empty space.
I think her workis so intriguing. There is much spirtual/ invisible aspects to her work. She holds space for people and objects and communicates with different states of being, almost like a meduim.
Her interaction with objects and attraction to objects is really what links into my practice.
I feel very drawn to use certain material's and natural objects. I feel a story within the object that is just out if my grasp and a lot of my making is about uncovering this story and the meditative process of transformation and gentle magic.
It's so encouraging to see Abramovics work.
The witches ladder and the many magical objects she chose are all very ingrained in folk lore so this links is so much with my folk project.
She describes the experience of first entering g the Pitt Rivers as an enormous force field of energies from the objects and their former owners.
Anyone with a sensitivity to object enery would no doubt be overwhelmed by the vast collection of this museum.
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