Emma Bäcklund

Walls Have Tongues Too

was performance five of five as part of my Chisenhale Studios' Studio4 Artist in Residence (May, June 2018)

This event included improvisation dance, isolated words on paper, sculptures and video. The visitor was invited to either write down one word on a piece of paper or choose one word on a piece of paper to bodily incorporate. Anyone who is a dancer, movement artist or simply curious in exploring was welcome to participate or instead contribute with a word of choice which was equally collaborative. Audience and performers merged between their roles and exchanged thought processes, language and movement. 

This work also included a workshop for 15 children 5 -7 years old.

Performers: Hamish MacPherson, Anna Von Der Pahlen and myself.

Where does a word originate from?

Nude, isolated from its co-form, the tongue speaks its own language. When this speaking tongue merge with body, walls appear forming the circular shaped mouth. What is responsible for this uttering?

Where does a thought originate from?

Both inside and out, in the between space of the mouth.
On the tip of the tongue, the words came about. Transformed from a thought toward a sphere between forgetting and remembering. Does a thought matter more, as matter? Thinking the thought, reduced to an invisible vibrating form. In the boundary of its walls, it exits one body to enter another.

Where does a movement originate from?

How can one strip off ones habitual structure and muscle memory? Surely an impossible task.
But beyond comfort and inhibition the body can perhaps find new unexplored patterns and rhythms, shapings and movements. Based on a word, disjoined and isolated from its context, reincorporated in the body of another mind it transforms in an ongoing recycled, liquid form.

The tongue hang passive as if it didn't have a body, guided by its hanging point. Another tongue lost control and within that found a new language.