Year: 2014
Sensation, bodily action and interaction inform the politics of Hannah Raisin’s performance, video and photographic practice. In her work she engages in actions as a framework for questioning social and cultural conventions. More recently these playful re-imaginings of the human body and its politics have manifested in gestures of enveloping, holding, and amphibious folding.
Soak presents video and hand-sewn costume developed on a residency program in outback Australia. Exploring what it is to be a contemporary Australian female in an iconic, yet foreign landscape Raisin offers a scenario where we question our own familiarity with this place that we inhabit.
Surrounded by the water that seasonally invigorates the northern landscape, Soak celebrates the sensation of being immersed in the material make up and contained space of the mythic water hole.
The performance tests the distinction between graceful frog and clumsy synchronised swimmer, uncovering the simultaneously calm and anxious sensations of holding, climbing, floating and tumbling inside a waterfall. The trace of the performance and material of the land is captured in the very fabric of the piece and reimagined in the dark projection space. Illuminated beside a document that depicts its use in a specific time and place, this work unfolds as a conversation between person, landscape and skin.
