Paloma Proudfoot with Aniela Piasecka and Ailie Ormston, Glass Delusion, performance at Collective.
A lone puppet-like figure stands suspended in an undulating soundscape. Her beige clothes enhance the impression that she is part mannequin or doll. Stilted movements signal her coming to life as her jointed, stiff limbs are animated by strained staccato accompaniments.
The overwhelming feeling of Paloma Proudfoot’s collaborative performance, Glass Delusion, with Aniela Piasecka and Ailie Ormston, is one of discomfort. As Piasecka’s performance, exploring the female body and voice, animates Proudfoot’s sculpture, we are acutely aware that she is both performing and reenacting the centuries of control and discomfort women have, and continue to experience.
Reminiscent of a Kazuo Ishiguro novel, we see a doll-like figure explore the environment. Wide-eyed, perhaps shocked at the state of the world, she tests out what her jointed body might be capable of. She maps the space in a musical cacophony of construction where Piasecka’s masterful facial expressions convey her disgust.
In an act of masking or self-preservation, the figure adopts the second skin of Proudfoot’s ceramic sculpture. Paradoxically delicate but reminiscent of armour, Proudfoot’s sculpture embodies one of the dichotomies of contemporary femininity – to be both strong and fragile. The bold metallic zip that dissects the torso highlights that this is a façade: a presentation for both facing and surviving the world?
The performer holds the sculpture tenderly, then wrestles with the weight and cumbersome nature of it. At moments, she finds balance and rest where they can both be at one, only to writhe and grapple in pain and in uncomfortable passage on the floor. Piasecka creates tension and suspense as we wait for what seems like the inevitability of the veneer’s demise, but are instead offered a reprieve when the sculpture and performer lie in mirrored slumber. Significant in that this respite is only achieved face down, turned away from the world.
The figure vacillates between animalistic skulking and becoming one of the audience before quickly retreating- testing where she fits in the world and finding no solace. She is then elevated on a stool, the embodiment of Proudfoot’s ceramic relief on the walls of The Collective, and then stilted, but determined, departs.
Piasecka’s struggle and embrace with Proudfoot’s work, accompanied by Ailie Ormston’s haunted, stretched and strained arrangements, seamlessly personify the themes of control and resistance woven through the historical figures depicted in the reliefs. As the figure retreats, hands held high in surrender, we are left to ponder the significance of this withdrawal and what it says about the future.
Performance of Layfigure, choreographed by Aniela Piasecka in collaboration with Ailie Ormston, presented as part of Paloma Proudfoot’s exhibition Glass Delusion at Collective, Edinburgh, Friday 22nd May.
