When making the animation, Estranged, I began with the drawings made by others after moving in response to the words:
You feel the word
lives for the first time
estranged
as soon as it is spoken.
Jack Ward, Mawson, January 1955
Beginning the animation, I was firstly connecting with the drawings, which I felt to be quite sensual. I found myself then kinesthetically describing landscapes I had experienced in Antarctica, both within and beyond my own skin. It felt exquisitely sensual, being touched deep within by the landscape itself, like a lover pressed to my skin.
‘Feeling touched’, by the landscape, or the floor, or another person for example, is a phrase often used by Rena Czaplinska to describe her experience dancing. Rena is an architect who draws and sculpts and dances. Improvisation is part of her practise. Maintaining connections between internal and external landscapes is part of that practice, and keeps our work alive.