Cut here ……………

A residency in Portland, Dorset, 17th – 26th September 2010

Part of B-side festival 2010 – 8 min film now on You Tube and B-side.org.uk

Bowling green installationPortland is almost an island – cut off from the main land.

This work is about creating circumstances to cut through the everyday into the magic and strange that is lurking just below the surface. And to reveal what we have forgotten is there.

The act of cutting is very decisive; once you have made the cut you cannot go back.

Tailor InstallationReg Paveley has been a tailor for over sixty years (his father was the first tailor to fit a zip in trousers) Reg’s business is to cut the cloth for each individual he meets. Each encounter is unique and specific, the shop is a place where people meet and things are made. I will create an ongoing miniature installation in Reg’s shop window over the residency from objects found and created over the residency.

Centre of Bowling Green installationVictoria Gardens cut through the landscape of Fortuneswell 100 years ago, what was once a common became a formal park. I will inhabit the gardens and surrounding areas and meet and talk to people about their relationship to Portland with my assistant Claire.We will ask each person we meet to cut out an individual tailored figure, color it in, write on the back and add it to the collection which will be placed in the mortuary to become part of that developing installation.

The green grass bowlers sustain the formality of the park; the clubhouse stands as a memory to those slower days. The act of bowling cuts through time. I will meet and talk to the bowlers and festival visitors, show a film about my work and green grass bowling, and from that meeting create a installation /response to their game on the bowling green.

Mortuary textStrangers cemetery is a closed cemetery, a resting place for many drowned souls. It is now surrounded on all sides by the modern world, forgotten and unseen. The mortuary was a resting place for the physical body. Each body was unique and specific. I want to cut the ivy from the overgrown graves and take the ivy to the old mortuary to add to the ongoing installation of light and images honoring memory and reflection.

Melanie Thompson timetable – CUT HERE Reg Paveley Tailor shop – 101 High Street Portland DT5 1JH – everyday information found in shop window

1st week 17th – 20th September

Out and about

17th – 19th out and about meeting and cutting with people between 12- 4pm in Fortuneswell and Chiswell.

Meeting and sharing

Each day there will be a notice from 11.30am in Reg’s shop saying where I will be.

Adding objects and text to ongoing installation in Reg’s window

Inside mortuary

Creating and setting up installation in Mortuary – Victoria Gardens

Opening of installation on Monday the 20th 4.00 – 6.00pm

Give lecture to bowling team and public on my work

Setting up Bowling green installation

Opening up discussion on art of bowling and Bowling Green installation. Monday 20th2-4 pm in Bowling pavilion

2nd week 23rd – 26th September

Curating mortuary installation open 2-5 pm each day

Tea and cake in bowling pavilion 2-5 each day

24thSeptember – 1 day installation on bowling green

25th September –

Graveyard

Cutting down ivy in strangers graveyard with scissors with public help

Extra images taken by B-side photographer Pete Milson

Bowling green installation

Tailor shop

Clare and Melanie

Outside mortuary