Sculptural, durational and designed for public space, the five-hour performance opens with two women standing back-to-back in matching custom-made dresses. Just between is the long train of each dress, which ultimately connects them. The women walk apart, so slowly, their movement almost imperceptible; over many hours gradually revealed is the text on the train, sewn in contrasting pink fabric. The walk continues, the train extends to 30 meters, shifting its scope from garment to banner, from body to assembly. The quote is then at its most accessible. The color and phrasing, political yet poetic, incorporate a feminist and activist ideology; here is a silence broken. The sculptural garment, claiming space and reclaiming our voice, serves as both a protest sign and a signifier of protest. Current intersectional feminist discourse is comprised of many actions, conversations and declarations before. This conceptual layering through time becomes visible as a single strong line, slowly unfurled. 

This line of our correspondence, actually the letters between us,  is also a link across space, to each other, as well as to the current vernacular of protest in this moment of social distancing. The oversized and shared dress is a weight and a bond, a measure and a lure; it signifies this moment as a metaphor of moments past, and the directionally of moving into our shared future. This is our Lineage.

Created by collaborative pair Longva+Carpenter.
https://www.artconnect.com/profile/laurel-jay-carpenter
https://www.artconnect.com/profile/terese-longa
https://www.longvacarpenter.com



Employing visual and gestural reiteration, Longva+Carpenter rely on and often examine our correspondences. We share personal commonalities, broad and general, in terms of gender, race, class and education, but our individual backgrounds, cultures and bodies provide significant grist in generating, as well as performing, our durational projects. We investigate the struggle and strength of difference—of the proximal other—through our shared interests in material study and sculptural space, creating heightened sites for specific and directed actions. In performance, singular focus over a length of many hours, always together, allows us to charge the space with both an intimacy and intensity of presence. Yet, our research and development process is usually conducted via literal correspondence (both discursive and digital) as we live in different countries. We dialogue and deconstruct aspects from our daily lives: memories, fears, desires, dreams, and our shifting identities across our two cultures. In this way, we are able to explore the relationship to self via the other, seeking connection, indeed correspondence, in all of our work.

Lineage was originally presented at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space | Výstaviště Holešovice, Prague, CZ in June 2019. The performance was scheduled to be presented at both Baltic Square in Newcastle/Gateshead, UK and Kunsthall 3.14 in Bergen, Norway; both have been indefinitely postponed.

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