Spiral at Meyrick

2022

Dorset, England

In the performance, the artist lines the parameter with sticks from the trees around, and slowly shuffles her feet, spiralling from the outer to the centre of the circle. She repeats the walk, then collects daises and returns to the centre to offer them, in a ritualistic manner. It is through this abstractly intuitive sort of ritual practise, responding to the environment infront of her, separated from religious rules or expectations for spiritual practise, she finds bespoke harmony.

This performance, improvised in Meyrick Park in Bournemouth, England, captured by Lyle Ingram, takes place in a golf course bunker.

​Heavily influenced by landart, Annabelle Keyes references Robert Smithson in this work, with a modern day take. With the driving force of her interest into a landart practise being conscious and direct collaborations with land, it is not so necessary to impose and intrude on nature as the great earthwork structures of the sixties and seventies did, such as Spiral Jetty by Smithson. Keyes creates a comparatively much more ephemeral spiral, on a much smaller scale, in a golf course bunker rather than the Great Salt Lake in Utah. These differences are key in noting that meaningful interactions with nature aren't just for the remote and the rich.