Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone
Berthing Bone

Berthing Bone

2014

Artists' Moving Image
Single-chanel, loop
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Exhibited at Bloc Projects, Sheffield, and Chelsea College of Art and Design, London
Supported by Arts Council England & Nottingham Trent University
Performance: Victoria Gray
Camera: Arillo York & Victoria Gray

'Consider the hands. Their idleness does not the devil’s work make; but rather is a precondition for self-transformation. Strip the hands of utility; allow them to become empty. Do not distract them with other things. Dislocated from their habitual duties, the hands fold back upon themselves to investigate their own potential. Wring out old habits. Wring in the unaccustomed, the unfamiliar and the new. Twist and turn into unexpected shapes and forms; becoming supple, sinuous, never still. Extend towards other parts of the body. Life too, can be made malleable, approached as material that can be worked and shaped, turned in other ways.'

Extract from a text by Emma Cocker, in Manual (2013), an artists' book in response to Berthing Bone.


Forces: imminent and immanent movement; redundancy; balance; hesitation; bone; berthing; birthing; handmade; anxiety; ulna; semilunar and radial notches; magic; dermatophagia; cuticle; knuckles; occupational ergonomics; carpals; scaphoid; boats; lunate; greater multangular; fascia; folds; fingernails; repetition; hovering; resignation; touch; sleight of hand; paronychia; blurred vision; dizziness; straining; vertigo; nausea; palm; metacarpal; fingers; arthritis; lense; antiwork politics; postwork imaginaries; handheld; sesamoid bones; rest; dread