How to recognise a Widow, Horse in a mirror, Private cup
The equivalent of snow is blossom
On the table is a book. The book is the size and weight of a woman’s head. I hold her head in my left hand and turn the pages with my right. On every page is a drawing of her face. Page one furrows its brow, page six pivots its eyes skywards, page forty two cries, page ninety squints in disbelief. I learn to read her moods by reading the amplification of her expressions, with practice I become fluent in her facial gestures.
(Sim-po-zeum) was a day long installation and performance event by four artists: Ruth Barker, Kathryn Elkin, Martine Myrup and Sarah Tripp. The event was held in the Jeffrey Library, an annex of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow’s central library and the largest public reference library in Europe. (Sim-po-zeum) was commissioned by Open Glasgow, an initiative for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art.
(Sim-po-zeum) was initiated in response to the Jeffrey Library and its Edwardian Baroque interior specially designed to house Robert Jeffrey’s collection of Victorian books. The mode of (Sim-po-zeum) was informed by Barker, Elkin, Myrup and Tripp’s ongoing interests in conversation, language, publishing and literature.
In addition to an installation and two recitals (Sim-po-zeum) also took the form of a publication which contains an introduction to Robert Jeffrey’s Library by Enda Ryan, the Principal Librarian of the Mitchell Library’s Special Collections. The publication functioned as an invitation to the event, a preface and an appendix to the event and a memento of the event.
Sarah Tripp assembled the publication and contributed descriptions of 9 customs and photography of the Jeffrey library. For the recital she contributed three performances: a ten-minute prelude, entitled customs and two ten-minute interludes entitled, objects and people. Customs demonstrated new social rituals, objects demonstrated objects transforming into metaphors and people demonstrated the interaction of strangers in civic spaces. All three performances were accompanied by electroacoustic music composed by Nichola Scrutton.
The recitals concluded with a performance of Gyorgy Ligeti’s composition, Continuum, selected by Sarah Tripp and performed on the harpsichord by Sage Pearce-Higgins.