A solo
performer in a squash-like costume inhabits the Duveen Galleries every day for
more than six months for the Tate Britain Commission 2018. Each element of The
Squash has evolved from Hamilton's interest in a photograph she found in a book
several years ago when looking at improvisational theatre and participatory art
practices in the 1960s and 1970s. It showed a person dressed as what looks like
a vegetable lying among vines. The original photograph dated from 1960 and
depicted a scene from a dance by American choreographer Erick Hawkins. Hawkins
was interested in Native American philosophies and he took the form of this
costume from the Squash Kachina of the Hopi culture.
As Hamilton
had lost the original source of this image, she was not able to discover its
origins and was left to imagine its context from the image alone. The artist
has brought together tiles, structures, sculptures and costume, inviting a
performer to explore their own interpretation of the image and how it might
feel to imagine life as other, as vegetable.
The
performer selects their outfit for the day from a collection of seven elaborate
costumes. Each one is inspired by the original image and by different kinds of
squash or pumpkin. The length of the galleries’ terrazzo floor has been tiled
in domestic-scale white tiles to create a new environment within Tate Britain’s
neoclassical architecture.
Until
Sunday October 7, 2018
Venue name:
Tate Britain
Address:
Millbank London SW1P 4RG
Opening
hours: Daily 10am-6pm (last admission for special exhibitions 5.15pm)
Transport:
Tube: Pimlico/Vauxhall
Event
website: www.tate.org.uk
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