‘I'm In The Bath On All Fours’ Well Projects, 2019 Collaborative project with writer, Lindiwe Matshikiza
HEARING FROM ARTISTS INTERVIEW
In 2016, a tiny, almost transparent fish was ‘discovered’ in the waters of an underground cave network in Germany. The fish have adapted to survive in their new deep, profoundly dark surroundings; their eyes have almost disappeared, their form has elongated, and they have developed highly sensitive pressure sensors all over their skin. The divers and researchers soon came to understand that the fish had been there all along, navigating in their own way for 20,000 years, swimming and sensing their way through the hairline cracks and interstices of the underwater cave network; spaces only a very small number of humans will ever see, and that extend further away beyond their imagination.
The first encounter between diver and fish, and the dynamics of the wet-suited body within the cave network, was the beginning of a conversation between writer-performer, Lindiwe Matshikiza, and visual artist, Flora Parrott. An email sent by Flora from a cafe in Konstanz (near to the Biology department in which specimens of the fish now live) began an entirely virtual collaboration about physical and sensed understanding. Over the past two years, the two artists have built a process that is surprisingly intimate and close despite the geographical distance between England and South Africa.
The resulting show was an installation at Well Projects in Margate called ‘I’m In The Bath On All Fours’, now showing as part of Sonia Boyce’s touring exhibition ‘In The Castle of My Skin’. The work sits underneath the main structure in an immersive hollow consisting of Flora’s sculptures and images together with audio recordings of Lindiwe’s spoken texts.