“Morton” – “Beedles” – “An abyss” is a video created for the sister solo exhibitions Love & Solidarity (February 2020, Grand Union, Birmingham) and Solidarity & Love (January 2020, Humber Street Gallery, Hull).
It documents Radclyffe Hall (a concomitant group of artists, writers, and others, working under the late author’s name and in this case composed of Nicky Crewe, Vicky Crewe, Seán Elder, Laura Guy, John Heffernan, Mason Leaver-Yap, Kim McAleese, and myself) engaging in a traditional craft from the Peak District, England, where I grew up. Over the course of two days, in Birmingham’s Modern Clay ceramics studio, we made a bastardised version of a well dressing.
Well dressings are decorative pallets of clay into which designs are formed with fresh flowers, seeds, wool, and other natural materials. These are erected around the wells of certain Derbyshire villages and towns each summer, in a tradition which dates from the 1800s. “Morton” – “Beedles” – “An abyss” focuses on the group’s hands doing the detailed, demanding work of constructing such designs, which, in this case, are not traditional. Drawn from disparate sources, they touch on a range of themes: queer solidarity, for example, and the legacy of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. The audio reflects this, as conversation recorded during the assemblage branches into varied discussions: of the history and social function of well dressing; of instances of transphobia; of the sparse and contested domains of feminine power; of hunt kennels burning carcasses by the side of my secondary school; of an escort with a pacemaker; of two heartbreaks; of more.
It is intended to accompany, and be accompanied by, the video work “The Ideal Bar” – “Le Narcisse” – “Alec’s” (2020).
