Equinox
2022 - Dorset, England
The Equinox performance works by Annabelle Keyes, in collaboration with artists Jovita Bhengra, Milo Van Dam, and Isabel Crabtree Parker, were made in a forest area in Dorset, England.
Collaboratively, the artists used their bodies to express connection to the space; motivated by collective, meaningful interaction with land, the artists experimented with ritual and motions. Moving cyclically around a centre tree stump, exposing the soil beneath the dead leaves in a ring. Planting artworks by Jovita Bhengra into the ground as monoliths, offering items to the stump and reciting poetry by Milo Van Dam.
Annabelle Keyes focused on femininity and earth, thinking of the earth as a mother figure. Relating to ancient English fertility traditions, she treated the ground as a womb-like space to return to a foetus position, acknowledging the juvenile role we play in interactions with Mother Earth.
Experimenting with the body and responsive performance, Keyes also created an image in planting the extremities to mimic the disposition of plants.
