Embodiment in practice: the power of a transformative in-between
Diana Petcov
From 28–30 October FIBER Festival 2021 presented a three-day programme combining audiovisual performances, films, talks, workshops and installations. Fuelled by the now critical quest for human adaptation to a radically changing world — both technologically, ecologically, and culturally — the festival compiled a wide selection of immersive experiences and conversations in line with our theme Mutation; which when explored and practiced as the blurring of separations, could provide us with both speculative and actionable modes of moving towards a new existence.
In the below article, Diana expands on her last article, deepening our understanding of both embodiment as a performative act to inform others as well as a remedial way of living and thinking. She does this through linking the performance of Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti, who gave a spell-binding performance at FIBER 2021, to the panel ‘Melting Mind & Body’ with speakers Camille Barton and Victoria McKenzie.
Born in Bolivia and growing up in Brazil, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti is a shape-shifter, worldbuilder and embodiment virtuoso, who inhabits worlds that are transcendent of common knowledge. In her performance during FIBER2021, she mesmerised the public with rhythmic electronic sounds woven in the background to her otherworldly voice. Repetition played a relevant role both on a bodily level and a sonic level, as she kept enduring and reinforcing trance-like frequencies. Words such as ‘space and time’ resonated around the Tuinzaal like a never ending transcendental echo. During her panel discussion (Mutant Myth Worlds), Ibelisse commented that she embodies “a creature of the underworld that collaborates with rock voices and bones voices…a ghost”.¹ Yet, one is left wondering: Was she the enchanter or was she the enchanted one?
Ibelisse’s performance reminded me of one of the Romanian writers and thinkers who was central to my interest in different cultures — Mircea Eliade. In his book The Sacred and the Profane (1957), he describes the manifestation of the systemic pattern of three cosmic levels: heaven, earth and the underworld connected by means of axis mundi. During Session 6: Mutant Myth Worlds, Ibelisse presented her practice as embedded in the exploration of the Andean cosmology through the different realms of: Janahpatch — upper world, Kaypatcha — middle world and Ujchpatch — the underworld. The latter is the one that she decided to inhabit and embody in her eponymous performance for FIBER, where Ibelisses’ body can be seen as the axis mundi, through which the assets of each individual world are ventured. However, while Eliade’s writings are informative in nature, witnessing Ibelisse’s performance brings a whole different level to the unravelling of cosmologies, that is — a sensorially and empirically rich one. Ibelisese’s embodied sonic act escapes words, as she states during Session 6, embodiment is something “you need to experience yourself”.²
Ibelisse’s desire to embody is rooted in reestablishing a relationship with the so-called ‘post-colonial fugitive body’.³ A question is ultimately brought up: How to decolonise? Ibelisse’s journey of decolonisation is grounded in her acceptance of grief as an inherent part of the process, through which space for healing and growth is nurtured.
In my quest of finding answers to what role embodiment plays for Ibelisse as well as for myself and others within the holistic systems we are part of, I figured the best way to investigate was through engaging in conversation with people who hold embodiment as pivotal to their practices and everyday life. I asked the two speakers from FIBER 2021’s panel Melting Mind & Body, Camille Barton (they/them) and Victoria McKenzie (she/her) some questions that arose from experiencing Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti’s performance.
Diana Petcov: Before we dive into certain topics that were mentioned in your talk, I would like to ask you: What is fundamental to your practice?
Camille Barton: I always struggle with this question. I think the core for me is really going back to the body and embodying sensation as an access point to undo colonial legacies. Also exploring pleasure, sensations and connecting to our bodies in a way that is discouraged within late stage capitalism.
Victoria McKenzie: I find that what I am interested in is the relational stance. The place of my body within the network of relationality, as well as the place of others within those networks. Understanding this concept is so seminal to my practice and ideas because I’m recognizing more and more that we live in a world of messy entanglements, of “collaborations and contaminations” in the words of Eco-feminist Anna Tsing–of historical moments which presented conflict, negotiation and even momentary revolutions–its all connected. What does it mean to learn from that and process it through the body now?
DP: Camille, in your talk you mentioned inflammation, is this in some ways a double-edged sword? On the one hand it is symptomatic of a process gone wrong and on the other it highlights exactly the means by which it did so. What methods can we use to depart from perpetuating it and into a more sustainable way of thinking and being?
CB: I think you are totally right that it has multiple meanings in the context I used it. Firstly, inflammation is something that I think of on an embodied level. When parts of the body are inflamed, it generally means that the body is trying to protect itself from harm. It is the body’s response to an imbalance and areas can become warm due to the blood rushing to the site of injury. This is described beautifully by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel in their book Inflamed, which maps the ways that colonization has caused increased inflammation in our bodies, especially in the west, but also on a globalized level. This parallels the increased inflammation of the Earth as a result of extraction and pollutants. It does not start in one place, it is very interconnected on a kind of micro scale within our bodies as “individuals”, as well as on a macro level, happening in the earth, within ecosystems as well. In order to address this, I feel we need to slow down and move with less urgency. Work with our grief and change the pace at which we are exploring or integrating solutions. What would it look like to respond to these challenges with care and intention, rather than react to them out of panic? I think this is one of the first things we can do that would cascade to a whole range of other interventions and ways of being that can create different relationships.
VM: [..] What if we say inflammation as information? In my head, I’m picturing for example the image of weeds in the garden. People usually try to pick out the weeds as soon as they see them and grow whatever they want to grow. But the weeds are just information, they tell us what the soil is lacking. If you have too much dandelion, you’re missing calcium. So you go back, you treat the soil, add a particular thing, give it something that could create a homeostasis or a balance to compensate for the overload. This is something our health system or society at large doesn’t understand or really know how to interpret based on pace or temporality, because we are so used to treating crises that are so immediate that we don’t understand that healing takes time and it is also circular. Crisis (in society or the body) always comes from a build up or a network of connected moments seeking balance–but what if we can get to crisis before crisis? What if we listened, like Camille said, to the moments of inflammation, our grief, our pace–and used that as a source of healing?
Crisis (in society or the body) always comes from a build up or a network of connected moments seeking balance…
DP:Throughout the talk, it was mentioned that this western divide between the mind and body is not necessarily inherent to different cultures. How is this explored in different cultures; do rituals play a relevant role in exploring the co-existence of both mind and body?
CB: I guess I can begin by saying that I think most cultures, almost all people of the earth have had rituals, embodied practices, ways of connecting to ancestors and working with sacred Earth medicines. I don’t think this is limited to some special people alone. I think this is very much a part of being human, but something that’s been disconnected due to colonization. A lot of rituals have been lost due to invasion and forced assimilation into this globalized, Western way of being. My people are Yoruba, Guyanese and Celtic on my dad’s side so all parts of my ancestry contained ritual practices that were interrupted at different times by colonization. I know that in Celtic traditions, there were lots of nature reverance rituals honouring the seasons, or wheel of the year, sometimes including dance or sacred earth medicines. In Yoruba culture, there are very rich dance and divination practices to connect with ancestors. So I think these things ways of knowing are intact to an extent in certain places and communities, despite being hidden or erased in other ways. What are your thoughts, Victoria?
I think if you are a human being you are a ritualistic being
VM: I think if you are a human being you are a ritualistic being, whether it’s beneficial to your life or not, I think humans gravitate towards rituals, which are habits, in essence with meaning, and we make meaning and continue to make meaning around that. [..] I’m thinking now of my own ancestry. My mom is Jamaican-Portuguese, my dad is Scottish-Trinidadian. In both Jamaica and Trinidad, we have carnival or bacchanal, and it’s so interesting to see how this ritual connects to its own African ancestry of celebration, through death or through birth, in essence and in practice. During carnival time we have what’s called “J’ouvert” which is the French creole for “dawn” or “daybreak” typically held at that time. You go to it before Carnival as a sort of pre-ritual, and it’s meant to be something cleansing for us. We wake up at four, and journey out of the home because it’s a day to be with the community, to play music and to dance. Then, we take to the road and walk together, which is really the moment of the ritual I most enjoy because everything transcends into a type of liminality.
A liminal moment because we are suspended in and out of time and space. We weren’t who we were before, and we’re not going to be who we are now, but at that moment, no social status or category–race, class, gender–matters because we are Island people, walking and gathering as a collective, and something magical happens there. So I think that’s what rituals are. They suspend these imaginary categories that we’ve created for each other, and create a different type of meaning.
DP: During your talk, you were also discussing this divide between individualism and collective ways. How can we practice more collective ways of being and thinking in our everyday life?
CB: That’s what I’m asking myself a lot right now. I’m working on it, to be honest. In my mind, I’m all about being in the collective and making that happen, but the reality is, we are all participants in this economic system that is based on individualism so I feel I’ve definitely got a lot of work to do. Something that is coming up for me is thinking about the ways that work structures can facilitate more connection and collaboration or prevent it. I am thinking about legal mechanisms that exist today, that can actually enable collaboration such as community land trusts and worker co-operatives. There is a lot of interesting stuff within the Teal organisations movement too. I really crave some change in this direction because I’ve been a freelancer for seven years, and despite being institutionally affiliated, the institution I work at is made up of people on freelance contracts. I’m considering how my work life can be less atomised and more collaborative. Similar to what Victoria has been sharing, I would also like daily rituals to honour the relationships with the ecosystems I am part of. I hope to get into gardening and growing more of my food, even if it’s just herbs and salads and small things to begin with. Composting too. I’m currently exploring the pros and cons between Bokashi and having a wormery. How about you, Victoria?
VM: I’m also right there with you. [..] I’ve noticed that in negotiating the collective, you also have to negotiate your own notion of control, which is something I’m coming to terms with now. I was in Ghana recently taking an Uber to work and realized I didn’t have any change. About 90% of the population in Ghana doesn’t have a bank account, so you use cash because that’s the reality of the economy. I let my uber driver know and he ended up yelling to the car beside him in the middle of moving traffic asking for change where he then got out of the car to make the exchange. This system of negotiation worked because it was flexible. It wasn’t planned, it was spontaneous, and it was contingent, which is everything that isn’t the Western system. The Western system is a system of permanence, inflexibility, instability, and singularity. It’s difficult for collectives embedded within permanence to negotiate or to come to different types of solutions, because the system around us is so stuck on a singular pathway. It doesn’t allow for those dirty, perhaps, messy moments of contingency. In entering a different type of system, which is the Ghanaian system, I have to negotiate with the fact that I didn’’t have control over that particular moment nor the system itself. And that might be okay, because it’s going to lead me to different pathways. So there’s a level of knowing, which is that I know I’m going to get to work and a level of unknowing because I’m not quite sure how I will pay this uber driver. Perhaps it’s about negotiating control, and the dialogue between being individual and being collective.
[1]: Talk Session 6 ‘Mutant Myth Worlds’, min. 1:30:21
[2]: Talk Session 6 ‘Mutant Myth Worlds’, min. 1:27:03
[3]: Terminology borrowed from Bayo Akomolafe, who is an international speaker, poet and activist for a radical paradigm shift in consciousness and current ways of living
Diana Petcov holds a BA in Art History from Univeristy of Groningen, and MA in Comparative Arts & Media Studies from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with the specialization of intermediality in film. She is interested in the phenomenological aspects of contemporary art practices as well as in the intersection between emotions, the human and non-human and relationality.
Written by: Diana Petcov
Edited by: Rhian Morris
