| Tract Live A rt |
|
|||||||||
| Site specific live art and performance in and around Penzance, Cornwall, over three weekends. Summer 2006 | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| Information on this site will be updated as part of the Tract Live Art Programme | ||||||||||
Under a white awning at Penlee House, Amanda went to sit in a white Edwardian dress, with a teapot and cup and saucer next to her as if about to drink mid-afternoon tea.
In fact, in a weird inversion of the tea-ritual she set about mechanically and determinedly to devour the crockery itself. Made out of sugar to look like fine white china, it shattered in her teeth, broken shards landing inelegantly in her lap, until there was nothing left.
Although shorter than most of the other performances, Amanda’s contribution was strongly symbolic, given that drinking tea has always been a symbol of civilised living and empire, and Amanda herself looked like a model in one of the paintings by Stanhope Forbes inside Penlee House. In this sense then it could be viewed as a rule-breaking act of metaphorical patricide: a refined, genteel woman turned chimpanzee
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Photography
by Steve Tanner