I enjoyed this on Sunday- 17 year old Zoe Bokany's first performance art work, Life Line at Enjoy Gallery. For four hours (four hours and 10 minutes actually) she painted zig zagging lines on a long piece of paper, in time with her breath, like a heart rate monitor. After four hours, most of the paper was still unmarked, lying in piles. Not many people were there to watch, and so it felt quite special to be there in that quiet and pleasant room, listening to the sound of charcoal on paper and noticing the different shape and character of each spike and trough. I think that some of my favourite performances these days are the ones where there is no narrative to distract me, so I can stop and do nothing. The Water Station, which was all in super slow motion, was like that. I'd drift and think and look back and the characters had hardly moved. Going to the orchestra is the same- whether or not I get into the music, I like to have time locked in when I can't check a phone, or talk, or do anything. For the first ten minutes I kind of rebel against it, then I decide its not too bad. Zoe was incredibly intent and focused, though in a way she could have doing nearly anything, nearly nothing, and I would have welcomed the chance to sit there and do even less.
Photo: Karah Sutton
Photo: Karah Sutton
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