Day three

I have bought a large galvinised steel bath, did people really use these? I spend the morning walking back and forth dipping my bucket into the river and filling the bath, the rythmn is satifying. I photograph my feet moving in the bath, the light makes them disappear. I tie a water carrier to the beam and drip water through the cracks in the floor boards, river to river. I think about Amelia Dyer and decide to go to the library, she was executed in the 1890's for killing children and placing them in the river up the road in Caversham. I have been thinking a great deal about drowning and immersion in water, I feel I need to name these children to honour them in some way. I spend the afternoon in the library researching. Tomorrow I will go to Clappers footpath to the place where several of the children were found.

Early days of the residency

The residency has started, we have taken time to feel our way into the space, we have our different ways of doing this. I am keen to work with Hilary, as she has a great deal of experience in somatic practice, I also want to play and let ideas evolve, time - lots of - time - allowing things to perculate.

We move objects in, clearing, placing, breathing in the space. I spend time inhabiting the space, looking into cracks in the floor boards, beneath the surface. Day one felt like I was nesting, I collected water in a bucket from the Kennet and washed the floor, it felt like a ritual, some sort of cleansing process, or perhaps just a way to get going. Hilary photographed me, and it reminded me of other work we have shared in the past; we don't have to speak too much, I trust her judgement I know she will document the work as if she knows it. I am so pleased to be working with and alongside Hilary. We talked about how artists influence each other, and agreed we didn't mind if the work merged together without any ownership.

Can I let myself live with not knowing and just wait for the work to unfold??

We sit and watch the water, we listen externally and internally, the water is constant, like bubbling olive oil beneath us. The gallery, once an old turbine space reaches out onto the Kennet, we are above it, there is a life around us, a Heron watching.

We move letting go of parts of the body, getting to know the body, the water beneath, the ground beneath, I claim the space as my feet expand