tending to moss

tending with is a cleaning practice and performance spanning set time. It is a committed sand-sifting experience along dispersed beaches, removing microplastics and other debris with the help of a tool. 

This process is evolving away from just the beaches of Moss, Oslo. It is entering new spheres with the addition of a wearable. tending with has performed a transnational tour with my visit to Toronto.

This process surfaced questions like:

how to perform the body plastic?
what are the land relations, what are my land relations, and what are the land relations of the project’s materiality?
what is the potentiality of transcending the gendered body, and what does that look like in the digital sphere? (acknowledging the conversations already being held)

the wearable →

January began the communication with sound artist and costume designer Cat Lauigan. Together we worked on what it could mean to perform in such an item, and the practicalities of such.

↳ first draft of ideas and materials

↳ beginnings of the physical drafts, ideas and tool

➝ second draft and completion of the design—it became larger, fuller and more compatible with the elements (wind, water). the image to the left captures the communication from Cat and her tests in California along the beaches there







the material is hand dyed with anotta seeds      

↳ photo documentation by Colin Medley on Garbage Beach (Halfmoon Bay) performance April 2022 in Toronto, ON along Lake Ontario



↳ still from video by Colin Medley
performance April 2022 in Toronto, ON along Lake Ontario

↳ photo documentation by Sarah Sekles on Langøyene
performance May 2022


project calendar →

→ december: test larger filtration system, winter lab cancelled due to covid measures in Canada, development of idea and ideation
→ january: research around productive choreographies continued, co-designed with Cat, back-and-forth around shape, form and function, 3 hour AR workshop—via Inter/Access—with John Craig Freeman, augmented reality artist with a focuse on public space, + Nicolas Robbe Hoverlay developer
→ february: research around productive choreographies continued, focused on placement, walking practice and getting to know (specifically Moss)
→ march: interest switched to Langøyene, design is in production and finalized
→ april: wearable arrives, sifting process with documentation and performance in Norway and Canada
→ may: sifting process with documentation on Langøyene, perform a showing-doing, practice video developed