a dance of eggs is simply a one minute video of everyday poetics, created on January 2nd, 2022.
This short video is a part of the sensorial still project that I started in mid-August, 2021.
I wanted to spend time during this year of being seventy – exploring, reflecting, and trying some things out – finding ways to adapt my creative practice if need be. I know that changes in our ability to sense (to taste, to smell, to hear, to see, and even to feel some say) can be a natural part of aging, but even so, the possibility of losing my vision or any of my senses makes me uneasy. Well frankly, it can feel at times, terrifying.
Working with the sensorial has felt like a part of my identity, just as much as my identity as a Japanese Canadian, or as a prairie farm kid, or as someone who works and plays with language. It’s a part of my history and experience. It’s how I understand my own voice. While the loss of any sensorial ability can be devastating, I also know that loss can be an opening, an opportunity – and that on the other side of loss one can create new possibilities. And this is how I want to approach this study and investigation with sensorial still. When I find myself in circumstances not necessarily of my choosing, I can always dive in and problem solve, accept the new challenges, and explore new ways of working. This mindset of adapting and embracing an approach that considers the other side of loss, is something that I feel I’ve inherited from my parents and grandparents.
I don’t know what forms any new works for this project might take, but my approach will be to follow my curiosity and wonderings, my intuition and exploratory play, to trust myself and to see what surfaces and what I might discover as I sense my way through this process with sensorial still.
The little one minute video above, a dance of eggs, is part of this exploration and this trust.
(Monday, January 3rd, 2022)
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I am grateful for the support of The Canada Council for the Arts, not only for this sensorial still project, but for their ongoing support of the arts over the decades and across communities.
