Landing in the Body

Landing in the Body is Flora Hardy’s exploration of forgotten gestures and husbandry practices that are receptive to and respectful of the animate life of the land. Daily actions of water care, bee guardianship, tending plants, scything inspire performative actions and drawings as an intuitive body language that reveals the subtle and reciprocal relationships between our human lives and the life of place.

Baptism III: Photographic sequence by Miche Fabre Lewin.

Baptism

If you and I were to go
To the water’s edge,
The first water, the still
Water, the edge of thrill and life;
If our feet sank into the soft mud
In amongst the hoof and egg and stalk;
If we squatted there,
Quiet,
Haunches and skirt,
And waited,
Would we fall or step or roll or sink
Into the water?
Would we break the surface tension,
Bend the reed?
How carefully would we enter into the
Perfect cool water
And drop down, fold down,
In absolute
Awe.

by Flora Gathorne-Hardy