conjuring alterity: refiguring the witch and the …...women (purkiss 1996, 17). this creative...

Conjuring Alterity: Refiguring The Witch and the Female Scream in Contemporary Art

Naomi Blacklock

Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours)

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology

2019

Keywords Alterity, breath, female scream, intersectional feminism, Other, performance, practice-led

research, residue, ritual, voice, witches.

Abstract

Historically, the potency of the term ‘witch’ has led to the ostracism, torture and burning of

women (Purkiss 1996, 17). This creative practice-led research project Conjuring Alterity:

Refiguring The Witch and the Female Scream in Contemporary Art addresses the political

and creative significance of the witch archetype as an emancipatory symbol for alterity in

contemporary art. Framing this research project are representations of the ‘witch’ as

characterised by legal, religious and social institutions, cultural minorities and LGBTQIA+

communities. Conversely, the project examines the limitations of the witch’s transformation

by observing its historical and contemporary reception in India. Therefore, this practice

research highlights the tensions between my Anglo-Indian heritage and the witch figure as

both a cause for persecution and a symbol of liberation.

The primary research methodology is based on ritualised sound and performance art. As a

creative strategy, it aims to amplify the body and the voice through embodied performance

and aural screaming. ‘Conjured-self apparitions’ and the female scream are terms used to

contextualise my performance works alongside the contemporary practices of artists such as

Ana Mendieta, Jill Orr and Yoko Ono that adopt performance, ritual, alterity and the figure of

the witch. Framed within an intersectional feminist methodology, these practices explore

cultural mythologies, personal histories, political activism, gender and sexual rebellion. This

research addresses the significance of disruptive feminist voices and reimagines

intersectional identities in contemporary art practice through the figure of the ‘witch’ as

Other.

Table Of Contents Keywords ________________________________________________________________________ i

Abstract _________________________________________________________________________ ii

Table of Contents ______________________________________________________________ iii–iv

List of Figures ________________________________________________________________ v–viii

Statement of Original Authorship __________________________________________________ ix

Acknowledgements ________________________________________________________________ x

Chapter 1: The Opening Ritual: Introductions ______________________________________________ 1

Section 1.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________________ 2–5

Section 1.2 Background to Practice Research __________________________________________ 5–6

Section 1.3 Objectives of the Program of Research ______________________________________ 6-7

Section 1.4 Research Outcomes ________________________________________________________ 7

Section 1.5 Mode of Presentation: Creative Practice and Exegesis _________________________ 7-8

Section 1.6 Writing Methodology ______________________________________________________ 8

Chapter 2: Chronicling and Beckoning: The Historical and Contemporary Image of the Witch _______ 8

Section 2.1 Introduction _____________________________________________________________ 10

Section 2.2 The Witch Myth ______________________________________________________ 11–23

Section 2.3 Past and Current Invocations of the Witch Figure __________________________ 24–26

Section 2.4 Silenced Women/ Silent Witches: How the Witch-hunt Continues _____________ 26–29

Section 2.5 Reactivating Power: Reclaiming the Witch Figure __________________________ 29–31

Section 2.6 Queer Witches ________________________________________________________ 31–34

Section 2.7 Voices of Others: Witchcraft in India _____________________________________ 34–39

Chapter 3: The Witch as Artist: Ritual/ Residue/ Alterity _____________________________________ 40

Section 3.1 Introduction __________________________________________________________ 41-42

Section 3.2 Performance Ritual _______________________________________________________ 42

3.2.1 W.I.T.C.H _______________________________________________________________ 42–48

3.2.2 Yoko Ono _______________________________________________________________ 49–52

3.2.3 Mary Wigman ____________________________________________________________ 52–53

3.2.4 Jill Orr __________________________________________________________________ 54–57

Section 3.3 Documented Residue ________________________________________________________ 58

3.3.1 Janine Antoni _____________________________________________________________ 58–61

3.3.2 Ana Mendieta ____________________________________________________________ 62–66

3.3.3 Mary Beth Edelson ________________________________________________________ 67–71

Section 3.4 Feminine Alterity _______________________________________________________ 71-72

3.4.1 Catherine Opie ____________________________________________________________ 72–75

3.4.2 Qasim Riza Shaheen _______________________________________________________ 76–78

3.4.3 Baseera Khan _____________________________________________________________ 78–84

3.4.4 Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek __________________________________ 84–87

Chapter 4: Ritual Methods: Intersectional Feminism and Practice-led Research as Methodology ____ 88

Section 4.1 Introduction _____________________________________________________________ 89

Section 4.2 Practice-led Research __________________________________________________ 89–88

Section 4.3 Intersectional Feminism ________________________________________________ 88–92

Section 4.4 Embodied Performance and Ritual _______________________________________ 92–98

Section 4.5 Voicing Through Writing ______________________________________________ 98–100

Chapter 5: Rituals of Body and Voice: Reflections on The Scream and Performance as Ritual _____ 101

Section 5.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________________ 102

Section 5.2 Disembodied Practice and Self-Erasure _________________________________ 102-101

5.2.1 Breath Hovering Beneath the Base __________________________________________ 103–105

5.2.2 Bound/ Capture/ Encase __________________________________________________ 105–110

Section 5.3 Water and Voice: Purification _____________________________________________ 110

5.3.1 Body of Voice __________________________________________________________ 111-114

5.3.2 Lustration ______________________________________________________________ 115–118

Section 5.4 Iterative Screaming: Parallel Presence ____________________________________ 118–119

5.4.1 Iteration I: ‘Netherworlds’, First Draft, Sydney. 5th–27th Oct 2016 _________________ 119–120

5.4.2 Iteration II: ‘Black Mass’, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne. 30th Nov 16th _ Dec 2017 _____ 120–122

5.4.3 Iteration III: ‘Netherworlds’, The Walls Art Space, Gold Coast. 5th–19th Aug 2017 ______ 122

5.4.4 Iteration IV: ‘Jeremy Hynes Award Presentation’, IMA, Brisbane. 25th–28th Oct 2017 _ 123–124

Section 5.5 Meditative Performance __________________________________________________ 125

5.5.1 Bell Bodies ____________________________________________________________ 125–126

5.5.2 The Ocean Between Us ___________________________________________________ 126–131

Section 5.6 Graduate Exhibition: ______________________________________________________ 131

5.6.1 Parallel Presence ________________________________________________________ 131–139

5.6.2 Padma ________________________________________________________________ 139–147

5.6.3 Residue _______________________________________________________________ 149–151

Chapter 6: The Closing Ritual: Conclusions __________________________________________ 152–158

References _____________________________________________________________________ 159–174

Appendix __________________________________________________________________________ 175

List of Figures

Figure 1. Grien, Hans Baldung. 1510. The Witches Sabbath. Image. Accessed March 12, 2016. https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/336235/777491/main-image. ________________________________________________________________________________________12

Figure 2. Gauzzo, Francesco Maria. 1608. Osculum Infame. Image. Printed in Compendium Maleficarum: The Montague Summers Edition. 1988. New York, New York: Dover Publications.________________________________________________________________________________________14

Figure 3. Francisco, Goya. 1819- 1823. Wicked Woman. Image. Accessed April 10, 2017. https://www.christies.com/media-library/images/features/articles/2015/02/24 /courtauld_goya/article_image_5_courtauld_goya.ashx?la=en.________________________________________________________________________________________17

Figure 4. Krishna-Abhisarika Nayika meets a witch and snakes on the way to meeting her lover. Image. Accessed September 9, 2017. Regents of the University of Michigan, Department of the History of Art, Visual Resources Collection. http://vmis.in/ArchiveCategories/collection_gallery_zoom?id=491&siteid=4351 &minrange=0&maxrange=0&assetid=27919&self_archive_id=32059&index=3#focused_div. ________________________________________________________________________________________36

Figure 5. W.I.T.C.H. 1968. Performance still. Performed New York, Wall Street. Image. Accessed March 4, 2017. http://www.lunalunamagazine.com/blog/witch-womens-lib.________________________________________________________________________________________43

Figure 6. W.I.T.C.H. 1969. Performance still. Performed Chicago, Chicago Federal Building. Accessed February 18, 2017. https://media1.fdncms.com/inlander/imager/u/original/2997539/artsculture2-1-7d387886100f7d68.jpg. ________________________________________________________________________________________45

Figure 7. Gauzzo, Francesco Maria. Witches Sabbath. 1486. Printed in Compendium Maleficarum: The Montague Summers Edition. 1988. New York, New York: Dover Publications. ________________________________________________________________________________________46

Figure 8. W.I.T.C.H PDX Women’s March. 2017. Image. Accessed July 15, 2017. https://i2.wp.com/hautemacabre.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WITCH-PORTLAND.jpg?resize=750%2C500.________________________________________________________________________________________48

Figure 9. Ono, Yoko. 2010. Voice Piece for Soprano. Accessed September 10, 2016. https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/102535659_0.jpg?w=297&h=300.________________________________________________________________________________________50

Figure 10. Wigan, Mary. Hexentanz II. 1962. Image. Accessed May 19, 2016. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.timetoast.com/public/uploads/photos/11021764/mw.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________53

Figure 11. Orr, Jill. 1980. She had long golden hair. Image. Accessed August 12, 2018. http://annemarsh.com.au/images/orr_long_golden_hair.png.________________________________________________________________________________________54

Figure 12. Orr, Jill. 2007. A Prayer. Image. Accessed August 12, 2018. https://jillorr.com.au/cms/w/a-prayer-4.jpg. ________________________________________________________________________________________56

Figure 13. Antoni, Janine. 1993. Lick and Lather. Image. Accessed July 6, 2018. http://www.janineantoni.net/lick-and-lather/.________________________________________________________________________________________59

Figure 14. Antoni, Janine. 1993. Loving Care. Image. Accessed July 6, 2018. http://www.janineantoni.net/loving-care/.________________________________________________________________________________________60

Figure 14.1. Antoni, Janine. 1993. Loving Care. Image. Accessed July 6, 2018. http://www.marthagarzon.com/contemporary_art/2011/01/janine-antoni-loving-care-lick-and-lather/.________________________________________________________________________________________61

Figure 15. Mendieta, Ana. 1982. Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales). Image. Accessed August 20, 2018.https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/11/the-body-is-present-even-if-in-disguise-tracing-the-trace-in-the-artwork-of-nancy-spero-and-ana-mendieta.________________________________________________________________________________________63

Figure 16. Mendieta, Ana. 1973. Imagen de Yagul (1). Image. Accessed August 20, 2018. https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/93.220/.________________________________________________________________________________________65

Figure 17. Mendieta, Ana. 1973. (Untitled) from Earth Body Series. Image. Accessed August 20, 2018. https://transpersonalspirit.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ana-mendieta-earth-work-3.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________66

Figure 18. Edelson, Mary Beth. 1972. Red Kali from Women/Rising Spirit. Image. Accessed June 17, 2017. http://www.nyartbeat.com/media/event/2017/2783-620.________________________________________________________________________________________68

Figure 19. Edelson, Mary Beth, 1974. With Spirit from Calling the Sprit Series. Image Accessed June 17, 2017. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/wp-content/uploads/SarahG/marybeth2.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________70

Figure 20. Opie, Catherine. 1994. Self-Portrait/Pervert. Image Accessed October 11, 2016. https://i0.wp.com/www.guggenheim.org/wp-content/uploads/1994/01/2003.68_ph_web-1.jpg?w=870.________________________________________________________________________________________73

Figure 21. Opie, Catherine. 2004. Self-Portrait/Nursing. Image. Accessed October 11, 2016. https://i0.wp.com/www.guggenheim.org/wp-content/uploads/2004/01/2005.14_web-1.jpg?w=870.________________________________________________________________________________________75

Figure 22. Shaheen, Qasim Riza. (2007) In a world where there are five women I am the seventh. Image. Accessed September 2, 2016. https://www.artfund.org/gallery/740x500/assets/what-we-do/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/2009/gallery-oldham/2009176_1_C.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________76

Figure 22.1 Shaheen, Qasim Riza. (2007) In a world where there are five women I am the seventh. Detail image. Accessed September 2, 2016. https://www.artfund.org/gallery/740x500/assets/what-we-do/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/2009/gallery-oldham/2009176_2_C.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________78

Figure 23. Khan, Baseera. 2017. Braidrage. Image. Accessed December 3, 2017. http://participantinc.org/content/2-seasons/3-season-15/4-iammuslima/khan-performance4.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________80

Figure 23.1. Khan, Baseera. 2017. Braidrage. Image. Accessed December 3, 2017. http://participantinc.org/content/2-seasons/3-season-15/4-iammuslima/khan_wall_v01.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________81

Figure 24. Khan, Baseera. 2017. Acoustic Sound Blankets. Image. Accessed December 5, 2017. https://www.baseerakhanstudios.com/acoustic-blanket-sound-suit/.________________________________________________________________________________________82

Figure 24.1 Khan, Baseera. 2017. Acoustic Sound Blankets. Image. Accessed December 5, 2017. https://www.baseerakhanstudios.com/acoustic-blanket-sound-suit/. ________________________________________________________________________________________83

Figure 25. Barboza- Gubo, Juan and Andrew Mroczek. 2014. Maricielo. Image. Accessed August 25, 2017. https://dazedimg-dazedgroup.netdna-ssl.com/491/azure/dazed-prod/1230/8/1238081.jpg.________________________________________________________________________________________86

Figure 26. Breath Hovering Beneath the Base. 2016. Sound installation. Installation documentation, Cut Thumb ARI, Brisbane. Photo: Callum Mcgrath._______________________________________________________________________________________104

Figure 27. Pénot, Albert Joseph. 1910. Départ Pour le Sabbat. Image. Accessed May 6, 2016. http://www.papermag.com/the-10-thottiest-witches-in-art-history-1439095592.html._______________________________________________________________________________________107

Figure 28. Bind/ Capture/ Encase, sculpture. 2016. Tasmanian oak wood, straw, PVC sheeting, zips. Installation documentation, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne._______________________________________________________________________________________108

Figure 29. Body of Voice. 2017. Installation performance work. Pond, water, glass mirror, soil, red neon lights, waterproof speakers, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Installation documentation, Metro Arts, Brisbane. Photo: Callum Mcgrath. _______________________________________________________________________________________112

Figure 29.1. Body of Voice. 2017. Installation performance work. Pond, water, glass mirror, soil, red neon lights, waterproof speakers, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Installation documentation. Metro Arts, Brisbane. Photo: Callum Mcgrath. _______________________________________________________________________________________113

Figure 30. Lustration. 2017. Installation performance work. Wood, water, mulch, metal, subwoofer with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne Photo: Dom Krapski. _______________________________________________________________________________________116

Figure 30.1. Lustration. 2017. Installation performance work. Wood, water, mulch, metal, subwoofer with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne Photo: Jacinta Lombardozzi.______________________________________________________________________________________ 116

Figure 30.2. Lustration. 2017. Installation performance work. Detail image. Wood, water, mulch, metal, subwoofer with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne Photo: Kieran Swann._______________________________________________________________________________________117

Figure 31. Parallel Presence. 2016. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Galvanised steel, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. First Draft Gallery, Sydney. Image: Azura Jenkins._______________________________________________________________________________________120

Figure 32. Parallel Presence. 2016. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Galvanised steel, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, salt, soil, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne. Image: Cameron Dale._______________________________________________________________________________________121

Figure 33. Parallel Presence. 2017. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Galvanised steel, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, salt with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. The Walls Art Space, Gold Coast. Image: Cameron Dale._______________________________________________________________________________________122

Figure 34. Parallel Presence, 2017. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Polished brass, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, salt, stage light, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Image: Laura Misso._______________________________________________________________________________________124

Figure 35. Bell Bodies, 2017. Sound performance. Performance documentation. Foam mats, bells, singing bowl, microphone, head torch. Photo by Louis Lim._______________________________________________________________________________________126

Figure 36. Ocean Between Us, 2018. Collaborative performance between Naomi and Charlie Blacklock. Performance documentation Yoga Mats, Pillows, effect pedals, speakers, microphones, singing bowl. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Photo by Louis Lim. _______________________________________________________________________________________129

Figure 36.1. Ocean Between Us, 2018. Collaborative performance between Naomi and Charlie Blacklock. Yoga Mats, Pillows, effect pedals, speakers, microphones, singing bowl. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Photo by Louis Lim._______________________________________________________________________________________130

Figure 37. Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirrors, bees wax candles, salt and stage lights with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Charlie Hillhouse. _______________________________________________________________________________________132

Figure 37.1. Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirrors, bees wax candles, salt and stage lights with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, West Brisbane. Image: Charlie Hillhouse. _______________________________________________________________________________________134

Figure 37.2. Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirrors, bees wax candles, salt and stage lights with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Charlie Hillhouse. _______________________________________________________________________________________135

Figure 37.3. Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirrors, bees wax candles, salt and stage lights with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Charlie Hillhouse. _______________________________________________________________________________________138

Figure 38. Padma. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. Glass mirrors, brass bells, soil, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Llewellyn Millhouse. _______________________________________________________________________________________140

Figure 38.1. Padma. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. Glass mirrors, brass bells, soil, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Charlie Hillhouse. _______________________________________________________________________________________142




Figure 39. Conjuring Alterity Residue. 2018. Installation documentation. Two television monitors with sound, infinite loop. Soil, salt, wax, mirrors. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Llewellyn Millhouse. _______________________________________________________________________________________150

Statement of Original Authorship

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet the requirements

for an award at this or any higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and

belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person

except where due reference is made.

Signature:

Date: July 2019

QUT Verified Signature

Acknowledgments This project has been nurtured, supported and sustained by an Australian Post Graduate Award scholarship and my broad network of colleagues, friends and family who I am abundantly thankful for. I think especially of my supervisors, Dr. Rachael Haynes and Dr. Courtney Pedersen whose incisive readings, critical feedback and uplifting support encouraged my voice in its truest form. I am forever grateful for your sensitive ears, warm embraces and words of support during my most vulnerable moments and my triumphs. To my friends and colleagues, specifically Courtney Coombs, Annie Macindoe, Daniel McKewen, Amy-Clare McCarthy, Patrick Wolfe, Anastasia Booth, Hannah Roche and Lachlan Malone thank you for your ongoing support, your friendship and your ability to make me feel lighter and better-off after every interaction. To all the galleries, Artist Run Initiatives, writers and organisations that have supported my practice over the last three years, my appreciation is limitless and I am forever grateful for the opportunities you have provided my practice with. To my big beautiful family, local and far, present and departed, this project has been for you. To my cousins Armani and Azura Jenkins, Laura and Jessica Misso, and my siblings Daniel, Sarah and Rebecca your company at my performances turns every gallery into a home. I feel your presence and your love every time I perform and feel our kindred fiery spirits every time we speak of our childhoods, our bodies and the ways we have fought against subjugation. And while I have been lost in the depths of this project I have felt you with me every step of the way. To my partner Cameron Dale, who continued to make me cups of teas even while stagnant cold cups surrounded me, who helped install every show, has been at every performance and held me when the project opened old wounds. You have been a pillar of strength; and I only hope I can repay you with the same patience, empathy, love and encouragement you have given me. A special mention needs to go to my familiar – our rescue cat whose approach to life taught me how to manage myself during this project; lots of rest, intermittent fasting, self-care and abrupt bursts of energy. And lastly to my parents Eddie and Charlie Blacklock, your spiritual guidance throughout my life has of course transpired into this project. Your weekly meal deliveries of daal and pasta sauce have sustained my soul and stomach, your words of wisdom have lifted me out of slumps, and your unwavering tenderness and love have been enough to see me through this life and the next.

There are witches by thousands, everywhere. - Henri Boguet, 1590

I

The Opening Ritual:

Introductions /

It begins with a scream

1.1 Introduction

History offers few subjects as infinitely captivating or maddening as that of the witch figure.

The term itself conjures limitless interpretations that all seemingly oppose one another from

the hyper-sexualised youthful witch, to the old decrepit hag, and everything in-between.

Today these diverse and varied witch archetypes are a potential allegory for any minority

group that has been mistreated, oppressed or forced into assimilation (Colin 109, 2013). This

practice-led research PhD attests to this search by examining the figure of the witch as a

metaphor for alterity and a symbol of emancipation. The present exegesis accompanies a

multidisciplinary research project that is both personal and collective. It draws on my own

subjective experiences and finds inspiration and solace in the works of artists and writers that

share kindled resistance with the figure of the witch. The project has come to life in the form

of embodied ritual performance that centres on the female scream and at its core, is deeply

rooted in a desperate desire to locate an inclusive and intersectional female experience.

The project arose when I first noticed my differences from those around me, and was

continuously ignited each time my body has been subjected to racist rhetoric, sexual assaults

and trauma based on my race, gender and sexuality. This search to claim sovereignty over

my body began again and again, every time it was made apparent that I had none. Within this

project asserting self-sovereignty responds and disrupts culturally limited ideas on what a

body should look and behave like. It is defined as self-ownership, and the ability to

exclusively have autonomy over one’s own identity and body (Church 2018, 85). This act of

reclamation has motivated, possessed and driven the project.

During my undergraduate study in visual arts, performance artists fascinated me – I wanted to

understand their process and in order to do so, began recreating works of Janine Antoni. I had

appropriated and replicated Antoni’s performance Loving Care (1993). The work showed the

modest gestures of me mopping a concrete floor with ink stained hair, just as the artist had

done. After showing the video documentation of my performance during a studio session

with my peers I was confused and angered by the discussion that followed. My body as a

woman of colour was studied as part of the work and suddenly themes of sexuality, gender,

race, ethnicity and immigration were layered on top of the performance piece. I walked away,

angry at my peers for summarising my work based on what I look like, and mad at Antoni for

having the ability to create works of art and not have her motives questioned because of the

colour of her skin. I was also mad at myself – that my efforts to scrub away at my skin at

seven years old in a hot bath after school had been to no avail, that the colour of my skin

destines me to fill a niche, a cliché. I was angry that my body prevents me from exploring my

areas of interest, and because of my body, I must only explore my own heritage and culture –

that the ideas white artists were creating from were not for me to use.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to force people to hear my voice rather than see my body.

I wanted to scream myself out of existence.

My focus turned to creating sound art. No longer performing live, I made works by recording

the scream from behind closed doors. My body hid inside speakers and headphones, where

only my voice leaked out. I became so disconnected – living as two separate entities. I

questioned what my voice was – if it even belonged to me. My body is a mixed race mutt –

my mother Indian, my father English – my voice is tinged with the Australian accent, I can

even pass for white when I am on the phone – yet I belong to none of these.

Never been to England or India,

Never learnt my mother’s tongue.

Who am I? Or what am I? Filled me and emptied me every waking hour.

Other. Something Other.

The ‘Other’ heavily influences my creative practice. In her 1949 book The Second Sex,

French feminist author Simone De Beauvoir declared that men oppress women by

designating them as Other, defined conclusively as lesser than men and in opposition to men.

She asserted that, “She [woman] is determined and differentiated in relation to man, while he

is not in relation to her; she is the inessential in front of the essential. He is the Subject; he is

the Absolute. She is the Other” (Beauvoir 26, 1990). Later in the 1980’s, Postcolonial and

feminist author Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was the first to describe the systematic Othering

of not just women, but people of colour. She states that Otherness is “a process by which the

empire can define itself against those it colonises, excludes and marginalises” (Ashcroft

1998, 173). In the context of race and gender, Otherness is presented in terms of difference,

inferior and as opposite, where those who are not white, heteronormative, or cis-gendered are

excluded and marginalised. Furthermore, the term alterity is the state or condition of

Otherness (Türkkan 2010, 369). Spivak argues that alterity can be a positive experience when

the “imagination is used as an instrument” (Sharpe and Spivak 622, 2003). She insists that,

“if indeed we are thinking about othering as a good thing, it is a kind of chosen othering, as it

were, the chosen othering through the imagination” (Sharpe and Spivak 622, 2003).

Reclaiming alterity through the use of imagination and creative practice is an exploration I

am bewitched by, as I aim to examine the process of expressing kindled resistance through

identifying with a marginalised historical figure – the witch. The notion of alterity is central

to this research, as the figure of the witch embodies what it is to be Other but also has the

potential to contest the confining patriarchal definitions of what it is to be different. As stated

by Justyna Semprunch in her book Fantasies of Gender and the Witch in Feminist Theory

and Literature, women have been confined to designations of “mysterious and not quite

human other… but the feminist witch (or the alterity of the woman)… becomes a central

strategic signifier, a crucial metaphor or rather a metonymy for radically transmitted values”

(Semprunch 58, 2008). This creative research project examines the witch as a metaphor for

alterity through its current political, artistic and poetic significance. The witch as muse, as

mask, as voice, shields me while I attempt to explore the complexities and contradictions of

my own body and voice. I use the figure of the witch to carve out my own identity – as a way

to self-define and self-describe.

As Starhawk wrote in her ground-breaking book The Spiral Dance, “To be a witch is to

identify with 9 million victims of bigotry and hatred and to take responsibility for shaping a

world in which prejudice claims no more victims” (1989, 21). Here the act of persecuting a

witch is the act of killing an innocent. Historical accounts cannot guarantee if these

individuals dabbled in the dark arts, were spiritual healers that undermined the church

(Ehrenreich and English 2010, 31), if they were children relishing in youth (Sebald 1995, 11),

or the old and infirm that were seen as weak-minded (Rowlands 2001, 50) making them

vulnerable to the devil’s influence (Borman 2014, 99). This is why it is important to note that

while appropriating the mythological image of the ‘all-powerful’ witch, the women and men

persecuted and executed for witchcraft had not committed the crimes they were chastised for,

and that this truth must be upheld (Plouffe 2012, 1599). Looking to the witch as a way to

self-describe is not about heroicising the victims of systemic misogyny. Aligning the title of

‘witch’ with empowering mythologies of the witch as disobedient, loud, fiery and awe-

inspiring, transforms this tactic into an act of reclamation. It is a way to give voices back to

the dead and to associate with something greater than these earthly bodies, which have been

mistreated, Othered and oppressed.

1.2 Background to Practice Research

The project has involved an examination of mythologies about the witch and the female

scream as they have been treated in performance art and intersectional feminism. This

investigation of the female scream is associated with historical representations of hysteria

alongside constructions of feminine creatures such as witches, sirens and banshees. The

obstructed female mouth is an image historically used in literature, performance and film as a

way of systematically silencing women’s voices (Gilson-Ellis 2003, 153). This history can be

traced back to hysteria, the first mental disorder exclusively attributed to women. Symptoms

of hysteria, as described by Sigmund Freud, included psychoanalytic theories on the

‘wandering uterus’, which he posited was caused by the womb drying out and floating

upwards in the body, settling in the woman’s throat, causing respiratory problems and

silencing her (Breuer and Freud 2011, 126). French feminist author Hélène Cixous

commented on this historical gagging, oppression and subjugation of women’s voices in her

1976 essay, The Laugh of the Medusa by stating, “We the precocious, we the repressed of

culture, our lovely mouths gagged with pollen, our wind knocked out of us" (1976, 248).

Cixous’ fusion of metaphor with the body acknowledges the negative depictions of gagging

women’s mouths and silencing of voices within patriarchal society (1976, 248).

After examining the historical dismissal of women’s voices, this research project explored the

transgressive agency of the female scream as a deliberate act of defiance and self-

authorisation in creative practice, as a way to break through this recurrent silencing. Ritual

transgressions are “moments of philosophical revelation in which the participant penetrates or

deconstructs the illusions of metaphysical, moral, social, linguistic and rational norms or

frameworks” (Gibson 1991, 1). Utilising ritual transgression as an aesthetic theory within the

creative practice, the scream is regarded as a strategy that can transcend social and cultural

identity standards. In Peter Schwenger’s article Phenomenology of the Scream, the scream is

observed not only as a form of communication, but as a sound that causes an awareness of

the presences in one’s own voice (2014, 387). Therefore, when engaged as a careful ritual in

creative practice, the transgressive scream has the potential to move beyond a signal for pain

and anguish and to enact self-determination for the female subject. The female mouth was

considered as a site of contested meaning. Connections between orality, text and the feminist

witch figure were reconsidered through sound and ritual performance artworks.

The key concepts that frame the literature and contextual review of this research are

representations of the witch figure, the female voice and intersectional feminism, alongside

artists that identify these themes through strategic ritualised, performative and vocal methods.

While historically the potency of the term ‘witch’ has led to the ostracism, torture and

burning of women, activists and artists have reclaimed this term as a contemporary symbol of

liberation (Magliocco 2010, 81). This creative practice-led research project addresses the

political and creative significance of the witch archetype as an emancipatory symbol for

alterity in contemporary art.

1.3 Objectives of the Program of Research

This doctoral research is framed from the perspective of an artist, and examines the

representations of the ‘witch’ as characterised by legal, religious and social institutions and

the operation of this term by cultural minorities and LGBTQIA+ communities. The creative

practice addresses the significance of disruptive feminist voices and reimagines intersectional

identities in contemporary art practice through the figure of the ‘witch’ as Other. Taking this

into consideration, the objectives of this research project have been:

To redefine and expand the current notions of the witch through theoretical feminist

thought and contemporary art practice.

To investigate how this renegotiated witch figure could be used as an empowering symbol

of alterity.

To analyse the female scream and ritual performance alongside contemporary practitioners

in order to determine how they have used the figure of the witch and the act of ritual and

alterity to create significant creative outcomes.

To utilise creative practice as a site to explore the relationships between the female

scream, the figure of the witch and the creative strategies of magic, mysticism and ritual as

subversive, powerful acts.

1.4 Research Outcomes

The chief outcomes of this project have been situated in the field of contemporary art and are

as follows:

Contributing distinct paradigms for creative practice through utilising the witch as a

metaphor for alterity.

Contributing new scholarship to the history of the witch through its renegotiation as an

artistic method.

The application of intersectional feminist thought to contemporary artistic practice.

The presentation of a series of creative works informed by these theoretical and scholarly

foundations, will contribute to new knowledge by encouraging discussion of the research in

broader artistic and cultural contexts.

1.5 Mode of Presentation: Creative Practice and Exegesis

Drawing upon witch mythologies and uniting them with current political issues of gender,

sex, culture and race help in using the figure of the witch as a symbol for alterity. Positioned

in a practice-led research paradigm, my project outcomes are presented via 50% creative

practice and 50% written exegetical component. Developed in tandem during the project,

both the practice and the exegesis feed cyclically of each other, and have formed a reciprocal

relationship.

During the project, local and interstate exhibitions have been presented in institutional and

artist-run spaces and have functioned as an evolving aspect of the PhD research project.

These have involved embodied ritualised performances, sound experimentations and spatial

research that contributed towards a major solo exhibition of works in 2018. This exegesis

provides a contextual and theoretical framework, where historical and contemporary research

on the figure of the witch, the female scream and my own cultural heritage as an Anglo-

Indian woman intersect with the creative practice methods and outcomes using an

intersectional feminist methodology (Lutz 40, 2015). Feminist intersectionality as a

methodology is concerned with examining and “exposing multiple positions and powers

inequalities as they appear in any social practice, institutional arrangement, or cultural

representation” (Lutz 40, 2015). Lawyer and activist Mari Matsuda’s approach to unpacking

the interconnections of “all forms of subordination” is through a method she calls “the other

question”: “When I see something that looks racist, I ask, “Where is the patriarchy in this?”

When I see something that looks sexist, I ask, “Where is the heterosexism in this?” When I

see something that looks homophobic, I ask, “Where are the class interests in this?” (Matsuda

1189, 1991). These are questions I have continuously asked throughout this project when

exploring cultural mythologies, personal histories, political activism, gender and sexual

rebellion, as “working in coalition forces us to look for both the obvious and non-obvious

relationships of domination, helping us to realise that no form of subordination ever stands

alone” (Matsuda 1184, 1991).

1.6 Writing Methodology Writing is a key aspect of this practice, not only is it a way to reflect and establish the

research that has influenced the artistic outcomes but it is also an opportunity to once again

assert my voice as a woman of colour and as a feminist. Throughout the exegesis, poetic

writing and imagery has been spliced through the writing as a way to reflect and administer

my own narrative and history. This exegesis has been approached as a personal ritual

almanac, each chapter adding a new element. When accounted together these constitute the

procedures of a larger ritual. Dynamically, these are processes that I have developed,

befouled, revaluated, and persisted with.

II

Chronicling and Beckoning: The Historical and

Contemporary Image of the Witch

/

2.1 Introduction

Over centuries the term ‘witch’ has been used as a scapegoat, death threat, and a way to

justify the torture and murder of women (Reineke 1997, 141). More recently the image of the

witch has become a call to arms for other historically-ostracised unruly figures and

communities, and acts as a consciousness-raiser for women’s rights movements, people of

colour, and LGBTQIA+ groups. So, what exactly does the figure of the witch symbolise that

has caused it to be esteemed as a protofeminist symbol of empowerment and appropriation?

This chapter chronicles the image of the witch through its historical, religious, sociological

and political standing. Framed by an intersectional feminist methodological lens, the research

illustrates the interplay between my own gender, cultural identity and sexuality by observing

the historic imagery and mythology of the witch, the return of the witch in contemporary

pop-culture, the transformation of the witch into a queer icon and the treatment of the witches

in India. It begins by examining the image of the witch as it has been defined and condemned

in European literature and the witch trials of the 14th-17th centuries. It goes on to examine the

witch’s redefined spiritual nature as Goddess worshipper in the writing of Margaret Murray

during the 1920’s and sees the term’s transformation during the 1970’s Second-wave

feminism movement in the writings of Mary Daly, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Dierdre English

who reconceptualised the gender-specificity of witch-hunts and redefined them as a form of

female genocide. Its popularity in 1990’s television and film are catalogued and illustrates the

witch’s entrance into the 21st century as a political activist that today gathers and casts spells

and hexes on the internet. Correspondingly, the witch as a feminist political symbol is

understood by demonstrating how other terms that have acted as forms of verbal violence

such as cunt, bitch and slut have been reclaimed within feminism. The research also

examines how women continue to suffer from acts of male violence using statistical data and

studies on domestic partner abuse in order to argue that while we may not live in the time of

witch trials, women are still perceived as the weaker and more vulnerable sex. Influenced by

queer and feminist theory, the image of the witch is observed through its reclamation within

LGBTQIA+ groups as a symbol of alterity, activism and spiritualism. However, it is also

important to recognise the limits of this reclamation by examining the witch’s history and

current representation in India, where women are still killed once they are associated with

witchcraft.

2.2 The Witch Myth

In illustrations, woodcuts and paintings from the 14th to the 18th century, the witch’s ugly

sexual depravity, dangerous brewing potions, and unbridled drooping breasts are depicted as

frequently as executions in which she is tortured, burnt and hung (Roper 2012, 16). Here the

historical image of the witch is trapped in gendered representations, where the grotesque

feminine prevails. These representations from folklore and mythology imagined witches as

physical threats to civilised society and detailed their disorder and their demise. German artist

Hans Baldung Grien, known famously for his fabled witch motifs, added to this image of the

witch as nude, decrepit, uninhibited, and threatening (Sullivan 2000, 335). However, the

individuals who were persecuted as witches by religious and government institutions did not

resemble this mythologised image of the witch.

It has been documented that the first accused witches of the notorious 1692 Salem Witch

Trials were the youthful daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, the Minister of Salem. Records

state that local doctor William Greggs was called when 9-year-old Elizabeth (Betty) Parris

and 11-year-old Abigail Williams began having irrepressible convulsions, twisting and

bending their bodies out of shape, coordinated with violent screaming fits (Abate 2007, 47-

67). They were both diagnosed with bewitchment, and soon other young girls and women

began displaying similar symptoms (Hale 2006, 55). By the end of the Salem Trials, 200

individuals underwent prosecution, resulting in twenty executions, fourteen of which were

women, and numerous imprisonments that caused as many as thirteen deaths (Adams 2010,

15).

Figure 1. Grien, Hans Baldung. 1510. The Witches Sabbath. Image. Accessed March 12, 2016.

https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/336235/777491/main-image.

This figure is not available due to copyright restrictions.

The diagnosis of bewitchment details signs and symptoms of female hysteria (Hansen 1985,

10). In broad terms Hysteria can be described as nearly any action a woman performs that is

deemed unusual – being quiet, loud, opinionated, laughing, crying, having sexual desire or

lack of sexual desire (Tasca et al. 2012). Each symptom counteracts itself with another,

consequently encompassing almost every human emotion. However, each of these

behaviours were exclusively ascribed to women (Tasca et al. 2012).

The mass paranoia of witchcraft spread throughout Europe and colonised countries

(Behringer 2004, 14). These anxieties transferred to the New England colony of Salem by the

Puritan belief in Satan and the Devil’s magic (Reed 2007, 211). In an effort to eliminate

Heresy, Pope Innocent VIII founded the convent The Order of Preachers and instructed two

Dominican friars within the convent, Jacobus Sprenger and Henricus Institoris, to write the

Malleus Maleficarum, also known as the Hammer of Heretics in 1487 (Mackay 2009, 2). The

book functioned as a witch-hunting manual, outlining strategies on how to identify, prosecute

and kill a witch (Mackay 2009, 6). It declares that women are more likely to be witches than

men, deemed as the “fragile feminine sex” (Summers 1971, 99), by stating “there was a

defect in the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, a rib of the beast,

which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is

an imperfect animal, she always deceives” (Mackay 2009, 102). Perceived as the daughters

of Eve, women and young girls were believed to be more malleable and receptive to the

devil’s influence than men, and consequently were “chiefly addicted to evil superstitions”

(Summers 1971, 99).

The book became the second highest selling after the Bible for 200 years, and aided the

European juridical systems enact violent punishments onto women more frequently than men

between the 14th and 18th centuries (Guiley 2008, 223). While many scholars debate over the

number of executions for witchcraft, the estimate is somewhere between 40,000 - 60,000

(Poole 2002, 192). The last alleged witch executed under British law was Janet Horne in

1727, performed with a public burning, and yet the image of the witch continued to be feared

(Hill 2013, 225).

The Compendium Maleficarum written by the Italian Priest, Francesco Maria Guazzo in

1608, operated as a follow up to the Malleus Maleficarum and uses the same misogynistic

rhetoric. Making deals with the devil (1988, 13), forming sexual relationships (1988, 30) and

greeting the devil and his minions by kissing them on the anus in a ritual known as “Osculum

Infame” or “The Shameful Kiss” (1988, 35), were just some of the habits witches performed

according to Guazzo. The book provides detailed descriptions and step-by-step procedures on

the irreverent lengths women endured to be reborn as a witch; and paradoxically reads as a

witches how-to-guide.

Figure 2. Gauzzo, Francesco Maria. 1608. Osculum Infame. Image. Printed in Compendium Maleficarum: The

Montague Summers Edition. 1988. New York, New York: Dover Publications.

III STAGES ON HOW TO BECOME A WITCH

I. Sign your soul over to the devil

This can be achieved ‘expressively’ or tactically’. An expressed pact is made in

the presence of the Devil, while a tactic pact can be completed with a written

request to the Devil, usually written in blood (1988, 35). After the pact is fulfilled


one must renounce Christian faith and one’s commitment to God. This can be

accomplished by hurling insults upon the Virgin Mary; Guazzo suggests that

calling her a ‘Harlot’ would suffice (1988, 14).

II. The Devil’s Baptism

The Devil will then bathe, rename and brand the individual (1988, 14-16). If the

devotee is male, the devil’s mark will be commonly placed upon the eyelid,

armpit or shoulder. But if the devotee is female, his mark will be placed upon the

breasts or genitals (1988, 15).

III. Pay Homage to the Devil

Carrying out the Devil’s work can be performed in the manner of cursing

neighbours, infecting and plaguing crops and livestock, killing and eating

children, dancing and fornicating with demons and kissing them on their rumps

(1988, 33-38).

These three sacraments, and every deed that embodies them, seeks to identify women as

subservient slaves to the devil, or possessed megalomaniacs. The act of renouncing one’s

faith in the eyes of the law was seen as pure anarchy, it was not solely concerned with

abdicating from God and the Church, but from the empire, the king, and the community

(King and Mixon 2010, 678). The idea of women abandoning their place in society for the

life of a witch, painted women as autonomous, self-governing individuals, but this idea of a

woman self-possessed was too ridiculous to believe, and so the logical answer was that the

Devil was the puppet master and that women were tied to his strings.

This is verified by the second ritual; the devil’s baptism, where witches were branded by the

devil. The ‘devil’s mark’ were usually visible skin abnormalities such as moles, birthmarks or

even third nipples. This was the case for Bridget Bishop, who after inquisitors found her third

nipple was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials (Murray 2014, 95). Her third

nipple, according to the records, was not only the mark of the devil, but had a demon living

inside of it that provided Bishop with sexual pleasure (Ruiz 2002, 73). Branding or

‘baptising’ a person was practiced as a way to identify slaves (Rodriguez 1997, 98). Usually

burnt onto the face, shoulder or feet with a hot iron, the mark would signify what company,

family or individual a slave belonged to (Rodriguez 1997, 98). The same logic applied to a

woman possessed by the Devil, but here the mysticism of female sexuality and female

anatomy are also at work. All women, as expressed in the Malleus Maleficarum have an

unnatural sexual appetite and “all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women

insatiable” (Mackay 2009, 114). This book also refers to the vagina as “the mouth of the

womb” that is “never satisfied” (Mackay 2009, 114). The fear here is that the devil can

quench a woman’s sexual thirst, or that women, as autonomous individuals have control over

their own sexual pleasure. The placement of the devil’s mark on a female’s breast and

genitals also encouraged inquisitors to sexually abuse accused witches, as the process

involved poking and prodding the body of the accused to locate the devil’s mark, and to

apprehend the severity of the devil’s influence depending on how much the mark bled (Darr

2016, 111-141).

The third and final ritual details the witches’ Sabbath. In order to express debt and gratitude

to the devil for sexual salvation and any other favours granted during the devil’s pact, paying

homage to the devil was a requirement (Guazzo 1988, 33-38). Acts of worship and service

towards the devil were commonly performed on Sabbaths (1988, 39) and were usually

carried out “one or two hours before midnight, this being the most suitable and able

opportune not only for such assemblies but also for certain other devils’ terrors, sports,

running’s about and hubbub which follows” (1988, 35). These acts of ‘hubbub’ included

flying, sex orgies, dancing, infanticide, and banquets that served children and newborn babies

as the main course (Murray 1918, 60). The favoured charge against women during the witch

trials was the sacrifice of children and babies and the consumption of them (Murray 2009,

147). Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger urged that “witch midwives cause the greatest

damage, either killing children or sacrilegiously offering them to devils” (Murray 2009, 196).

Throughout the 15th-18th century, these female healers played the role of abortionists,

naturopaths and nurses (Ehrenreich and Deirdre 2010, 4), during a time that saw a 30%

mortality rate in children under the age of five years old (Roster 2015).

Figure 3. Francisco, Goya. 1819- 1823. Wicked Woman. Image. Accessed April 10, 2017. https://www.christies.com/media-library/images/features

/articles/2015/02/24/courtauld_goya/article_image_5_courtauld_goya.ashx?la=en. .


These accusations directly relate to the fear and horror associated with women revolting

against feminine traditions. As stated by Louis Jackson in their book Witches, wives and

mothers: witchcraft persecution and women's confessions in seventeenth-century England:

The key to understanding the witch trials lies in their gender-specificity. The details

of the cases refer directly to traditionally defined feminine space – the home, the

kitchen, the sickroom, the nursery; to culturally defined female tasks or occupations

and their direct opposites – feeding (poisoning), child-rearing (infanticide), healing

(harming), birth (death) (Jackson 1995, 71).

Guazzo goes on to say that while both men and women attend the Sabbaths “there are far

more women than men”, reiterating the sentiments of the Malleus Maleficarum that women

are indeed more susceptible to the devil than men (1998, 36).

It is important to remember that witches were not writing about themselves during this

period. The knowledge, interrogation, and persecution of witches was written and delivered

by men. It was only in the 1970’s during the second wave of feminism that this account of

history was challenged, detailing that the “witch craze” was a constructed phenomenon, and

those in power constructed it (Daly 1978, 220). Historical accounts between the 1920s-1960s

continued to generate the belief that the witch hunts of the 15th-17th centuries occurred

because women were gathering during Sabbaths to worship a horned god. The Witch-Cult

Hypothesis, a theory crafted by German scholars Karl Ernst Jarcke and Franz Josef Mone in

the 19th century, theorised that the early modern witch trials were carried out to destroy pre-

Christian spirituality and religion (Hutton 2007, 20).

Margaret Murray, credited as the first female author to write an historic account of the witch-

hunts, echoed the theories of the Witch-Cult Hypothesis in 1921 (Murray 2014, 8). Murray

concurred that witch-hunts were implemented by the Church to eliminate pre-Christian

religions and its devotees and she was the first to reframe this organised religion as pagan and

as female-centric through the worship of a Goddess (Murray 2014, 8). As recently as the

1960s historian writers sustained Murray’s theories, as demonstrated by Pennethorne Hughes,

who agreed with these observations on witch cults and continued to write about them as

historically accurate findings (Hughes 1965, 55). After her death in 1963, Murray’s historical

interpretation of the witch-hunts, along with The Witch-Cult Hypothesis had been discredited,

as they arguably read as a work of fiction (Noble 2007, 5). However, her revaluation of

witches as Pagan Goddess worshippers gained recognition when it was reprinted in 1952,

exposing it to a new audience and resonating with feminists.

Feminist authors in the 1970s questioned whether the witch-hunts were intentional ‘woman-

hunts’. Distinguished authors that investigated this, under the influence of Margaret Murray’s

work, were Mary Daly, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Dierdre English. Feminist author Mary Daly

was greatly influenced by Murray’s writings on the witch-hunts in their book Gyn/Ecology:

The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978). In it she reclaimed the terms ‘witch’ and ‘hag’

outside of their persecuted and violent affiliations (Daly 1978, 220). She also corroborates

Murray’s writings on Goddess spirituality and the witch-hunts as attempts to obliterate

female power, by confirming “the intent [of European witch hunts] was to break down and

destroy strong women, to dis-member and kill the Goddess, the divine spark of be-ing in

women” (1978, 183). Daly was also the first to call the witch-hunts a “woman’s holocaust”

and “gynocide” (1978, 202). Similarly, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English in their

book, Witches, Midwives and Nurses (2010), aimed to reclaim the healing roles of women in

the late twentieth century and investigated the emphasised relationship assigned between

witches and midwives in the Malleus Maleficarum (2010, 12). Through a feminist lens, these

authors looked at the kinds of women that were vilified as witches, in order to argue that the

witch-hunts were in fact women-hunts.

Misogyny, sexism and violence towards women are prehistoric, but the witch-hunts, trials

and executions of the 14th-17th centuries saw unprecedented levels of violence and murder

against women, and it begs the question of why this period saw an increase of gender-based

violence? During the 900s and early 1400s, witches in Europe were not only believed in but

widely accepted, with ecclesiastical laws laid down preventing prosecutions against them

(Behringer 2004, 31). It was not until the 1500s, when Christian authorities reversed their

position on witches, that witch-hunting and witch trials began (Clark 1999, 457). The

Malleus Maleficarum can be argued as the primary instigator that fuelled the fear and

violence perpetrated against women. If this is true, then the book, along with the two

Dominican priests who wrote it are responsible for the death of around 60,000 victims.

Although the book is fuelled by a fear and hatred of women, it did not launch the conception

of misogyny, but gives an insight into the society and politics of the time.

In her 2004 book Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation,

Silvia Federici contends that women “had been in the forefront of the heretical movements,

often organising in female associations” and that this presented “a growing challenge to male

authority and the Church” (2004, 184). In Federici’s reframing of history, women’s collective

knowledge of healing and magic was an interconnected element of peasant culture (2004,

142). However, this position of women in society shifted when the open field system ended

with the rise of capitalism (2004, 50). The subdivision, privatisation and fencing of

communal land benefited the wealthy but impoverished the poor, and left women with little

to no economic security (2004, 72). As capitalist relations swelled so too did the prejudice

towards lower social classes, which fed into the depiction of witches as soiled female beggars

(2004, 163). Federici argues that capitalism was not a progressive development as stated by

Karl Marx, but that witch burning and the weakening of women and the poor were integral in

the development of capitalism (2004, 12).

The perception of witches acting as collateral damage in the struggle for economic, political

and social rule continues to generate new investigations and research. Recently two

economists Peter Leeson and Jacob Russ argue that the witch trials reflected “non-price

competition between the Catholic and Protestant churches for religious market share” (2017,

1). Here women, established by society as the weaker sex, acted as collateral damage in the

struggle for religious rule.

The unholy alliance between religion and politics produced the “legalised monopoly of

violence”, a phrase coined by Max Weber (2009, 154), which generated a need to exhibit

political power through theatrical events such as public confessions, burning and hangings.

The split of Christians into two components occurred in 1521 with the Protestant and

Catholic reformations (Russell 1986, 10). This led to a war of religion, where Protestant and

Catholic authorities needed to assert their power to gain followers (Roper 2017, 12).

Superstition was also heavily potent at the time, along with the principles of good and evil

found in the Bible. The overwhelming belief in magic, set alongside the societal structures of

the time, saw relationships develop between witchcraft, the devil and an inherent hatred and

mistrust of women, which ultimately placed women in a dangerous, vulnerable and inferior

role (Federici 2004, 12).

Leeson and Russ proposed that the 15th-17th century witch-hunts were most rampant where

Catholic-Protestant conflict was at its peak (2017, 1). It is believed that churches selected

strategic regional battlegrounds, which substantiates why Germany, the epicentre for

Protestant Reformation, had the highest number of witch prosecutions in Europe with nearly

16,500 individuals trialled for witch-craft, which resulted in 6,887 deaths, totalling 38% of

European witch trials (2017, 20). These researched accounts on the witch-hunt histories from

Silvia Federici, Peter Leeson and Jacob Russ paint a conclusive understanding of the “witch-

craze” by taking into account the historical transformations of the rise of capitalism and

religious reformation against the societal imbalance of gender power.

In the 1960s and 1970s the image of the witch returned when occult representation was on

the rise within Neopaganism and the dark arts. These practices found their way into popular

culture through critically acclaimed films such as Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby

(1968), causing what would soon be known as the ‘satanic panic’ (Hughes 2016, 1). The

villains of these films were often depicted as satanic witches and ignited terror in the West;

rousing the belief that black magic was once again alive and well (Johnston and Aloi 2007,

19). A string of media and news reports soon declared an epidemic of Satanic Ritual Abuse

(SRA). As Hannah E. Johnston and Pred Aloi comment in their book The New Generation

Witches; Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture (2007), the most shocking revelation

about these modern day witch-hunts and accusations of SRA was that, the general public was

surprisingly willing to believe that an underground network of Satan worshippers existed

which ran afoul of legal and moral constraints, and that any statement linking Neopagan

Witchcraft to Satanism, no matter how nefarious or illogical, was readily believed by a large

portion of the same media-consuming public (2007, 114-115). Groups such as the feminist

collective W.I.T.C.H (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) were exposed

to the general public through news media outlets, which only added flame to the moral panic

(Steinem 1969). Official investigations lead by the F.B.I to investigate these claims resulted

in no evidence or validity, questioning whether there was any weight in the existence of SRA

to begin with (Sauer 1994).

“Only in this century have Witches been able to ‘come out of the broom closet’”

– Starhawk 1989, 21.

The witch as a positive role model and fashion icon only emerged during the mid-1990s,

alongside the television debuts of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996), Buffy the Vampire

Slayer (1997) and Charmed (1998). The resurgence of witchcraft as an ideology and style

craze as proposed by Johnson and Aloi was a product of “the open culture of the Internet, the

inquisitiveness and investment of youth cultures and the media industries that seek to serve

them, and the development and proliferation of the ‘New Age’ and alternative spiritualties in

the West” (Johnson and Aloi 2007, 97).

Teenage subjectivity was spoken through the image of the witch seen in television portrayals.

These depictions saw young self-determined women, skilled in magic and sorcery, gather in

groups to support each other and construct their own identities and female friendships outside

of the traditional and dominant discourse that dictates how teenage girls should appear and

behave. Angela McRobbie speaks of these non-traditional “all-girl subcultures” by stating,

“To the extent that all-girl subcultures, where the commitment to the gang comes first,

might… provide their members with a collective confidence which could transcend the need

for ‘boys’ they could well signal an important progression in the politics of youth culture”

(McRobbie 2000, 42). This progression towards the prioritisation of female friendships is

exemplified by evidence that indicates all depictions of the witch during the 1990s in

television series or movies passed the Bechdel Test1. Within the reflective screens of home

television sets, young women were locating their own reflections, independence and self-

empowerment by identifying with these on-screen witches. However, while these depictions

are refreshing in comparison to the vindictive and chauvinistic interpretations pre-20th

century, they failed to represent an intersectional and inclusive image of the witch. Each

depiction largely described a hetero-normative white, middle class female, whose biggest

obstacles involved coming to terms with being a witch, and navigating her powers and social

life while surviving young adult-hood.

1 The Bechdel Test aims to examine the representation of female characters in fictional works; for a work to pass it must follow three requirements. The first is that it must include more than two women, secondly, they must communicate with each other and not just exist for the male protagonists, and thirdly, their dialogue must be written about subjects besides men. Selisker, Scott “The Bechdel Test and The Social Form of Character Networks.” New Literary History vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 505-523,570.

More recently, the image of the witch is progressively emerging as an inclusive,

intersectional feminist. The 2018 reboots of Sabrina and Charmed are being heralded as

political feminist fantasy, whose protagonists are aggressively self-determined (David 2018

and Mason 2018). In the revitalised Charmed, the three sisters are actresses of colour, with

one of the sister portrayed as queer (Mason 2018). Similarly, Netflix’s The Chilling

Adventures of Sabrina produces friendships between witches and humans alike, with a

feminist message “If magic isn’t used for justice, then it’s not witchcraft” (David 2018). The

friendships are unapologetically diverse and inclusive, most visibly seen in Sabrina’s two

best friends; Susie, a non-binary character, played by actor Lachlan Watson, who themselves

is gender-nonconforming (David 2018) and Rosalind, a black female character who discovers

her own ancestral supernatural powers as the show progresses. In episode three, the show

pays tribute to radical feminist witch history by referencing W.I.T.C.H collective when the

three friends establish their own feminist organisation WICCA (Women’s Intersectional

Cultural and Creative Association) (Aguirre-Sacasa 2018). As Rosalind tells Susie after being

bullied for their gender identity, “If anyone messes with you again, you will have a

recognised, legitimate sisterhood backing you up” (Aguirre-Sacasa, 2018). Viewers will

recognise that this witch coven pursues justice, representation and power for the marginalised

and disempowered.

As written about by Lynn Hume, author of Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia “the

symbolism of the witch transcends phallocentric imagery and conveys the image of an

independent, anti-establishment, political, spiritual and magical being” (1997, 87). Rather

than the witch being represented as a one-dimensional caricature, we need to recognise the

witch figure as the true hodgepodge, medley cauldron of intersecting dialogues that are

principally concerned with sexuality, gender and self-governance through the use of

metaphor and mythology.

2.3 Past and Current Invocations of the Witch Figure

Preliminary research for this project suggests that when governments fail their citizens, when

society turns savage and when life feels uncertain, the figure of the witch is often invoked.

This mythology of the witch possessed with magic that can bend the world around them,

delivers a direct path to self-empowerment, emancipation and transformation.

In Barbara Hales’ article Mediating Worlds: The Occult as Projection of the New Women in

Weimar Culture (2010), she examines the situation of European women following the First

World War. These women were facing political and social liberation after women’s suffrage

was granted, allowing them to participate in elections from January 1919 (Hales 2010, 330).

This sanctioned equality in education for the sexes, equal pay in the professions and equal

opportunity in civil services. Despite these new freedoms, women were still expected to

perform as wives and mothers regardless of their participation in the workforce. Defined as a

“New Woman” (2010, 322) the transitionary post-war period saw an influx in the

participation in the occult. During this era, women were seen as “trapped between the

supposed masculine and feminine desires” (Hales 2010, 319) of the workforce and

childrearing responsibilities. ‘New Women’ were caught in an in-between state of these

feminine/masculine roles and dubbed the third sex because of the androgyny associated with

business women (Hales 2010, 325). Consequently a situation was created where ‘dangerous’

spiritual mysticism was attributed to women, as Hales states, “The feminine is often

positioned at the margins, with woman possessing the power of the other, which is dangerous

and must be held in check” (2010, 318). However, these women used these powers to their

advantage. With their newfound mysticism, women readily found jobs in the workforce as

fortune tellers, clairvoyants and mediums, often working for law enforcement officials (2010,

320).

The use of witch mythology is not just used by spiritual believers, but by the non-religious as

well. The witch archetype is a symbol of power, strength and activism for any minority group

that has been abused, subjugated or forced into assimilation. During the 1970’s, feminist

collective W.I.T.C.H (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) began by

‘hexing’ the New York stock exchange (Bobel and Lorber 2005, 124). Their protest chant

parodied the three witches’ invocation from Shakespeare’s play Macbeth (1623), “Double,

bubble, war and rubble, when you mess with women, you’ll be in trouble” (Bobel and Lorber

2005, 124). Political American feminist and writer Jo Freeman documented the W.I.T.C.H

collective, and noted how their actions echoed “around the country” (Doyle 2015), such that

“Boston women hexed bars. DC women hexed the presidential inauguration [and] Chicago

women zapped everything” (Doyle 2015). While W.I.T.C.H was short-lived, ending in 1970

(Debolt and Baugess 2011, 724) these strategies of individuals using the actions of the witch

to incite political and social change continues today.

The Internet has become a virtual spiritual community for witches on a global scale. It

provides information on rituals, spells, and magical tools, reading materials on folklores,

histories and traditions and has recently developed into a digital coven. While the witch is

often portrayed as a solitary figure, they also belong to a community of interest that believes

in a just world. Online, witches are able to continue with this traditional mythology at the

same time as using the figure of the witch as motive to organise and initiate political

activism. For example, on the 2nd of June 2016, Brock Turner known primarily as the

‘Stanford Rapist’ was sentenced to serve three months of a six-month verdict for sexually

assaulting an unconscious woman (Vagianos 2016). Understandably, the verdict caused an

international uproar and motivated a surge in activism. While millions protested by

circulating a letter composed by the victim to their Facebook wall, Instagram, Twitter and

Tumblr sites, others signed petitions to recall Aaron Persky, the judge responsible for

Turner’s light sentencing (Stack 2016). These forms of protest were matched with a

somewhat unconventional and esoteric form of activism on Tuesday the 7th of June when 600

witches gathered on a Facebook event to Hex Brock Turner, Dan Turner (Brock Turner’s

Farther) and Judge Persky (Moyle 2016).

The event also functioned as a gesture of support to other rape survivors who have been

failed by the justice system. The event organiser Melanie Elizabeth Hexen explained what

inspired her town coven of thirteen members to create the event, "We all felt so much

injustice and anger and sadness and the need to connect on a psychological level with other

people who felt the same and could do something about it" (Paul 2016). The Facebook event

included instructions for the Hex with examples of text to repeat during the ceremony and the

objects needed to conduct the ritual, including a black candle and pictures of the men

wrapped in black string (Moyle 2016). These operated more as guidelines rather than strict

ritual rules, with variations altering widely between witch and practice. Many participants

also shared their own survival stories of sexual assault during the Hex, with the organiser

stating:

I was touched so deeply they were involved in this ritual, and I feel that their

witchcraft was ten times more powerful than mine in this situation. Someone who has

been through something like that would have so much rage and so much power and so

much need for justice that they made it so much stronger. It was brave of them to

come forward and hopefully cathartic for them to do that (Paul 2016).

News outlets such as DAZED Magazine, Broadly (a subsidiary of Vice Media) and the

Huffington Post began circulating and reporting the event’s performance. These

contemporary witches show that political activism and feminism have an affinity with the

witch. This kinship between witch as Othered, ally and activist offers a figure of resistance

that bestows the strength to stand up and fight back. However, while individuals are finding

their voice when aligned with the witch, women’s basic rights, opinions and freedoms remain

largely unheard as a continuing consequence of male oppression.

2.4 Silenced Women / Silent Witches: How the Witch-Hunt Continues

Although witch-hunts are associated with early modern Europe and Colonial North America,

the pattern has been repeated around the world for centuries. The relationship between the

fear of women and the persecution of women may have been at its strongest during the

historical witch trials, but the violent silencing of women has been around since the

emergence of civilization. The first example of governmental law in recorded history is The

Liberty Cones of Urukagina (circa 2,400 BC), found in Mesopotamia. Inscribed on them is a

phrase that declares, “if a woman speaks out of turn, then her teeth will be smashed by

a brick” (Foreman 2015). These violent acts of women’s suppression continue to occur today.

The methods in which women are punished, victimised and silenced may have changed from

the traditional witch-trials, but remain present in equally sinister forms.

Women’s presence, voices and authority continue to be undermined and underestimated,

even when they take the form of natural disasters. Recent studies have shown that hurricanes

with feminine names cause more damage than hurricanes with masculine names (Rice 2014).

Research conducted between 1950-2012 found that a storm with a male name would result in

approximately fifteen fatalities while a female named storm with the same wind speed would

result in approximately forty-two fatalities (Rice 2014). These staggering disparities occur

when people apply gender stereotypes to the names given to these storms, such as women

being gentler or more feeble than men, implicating that a hurricane with a feminine name will

be less aggressive, consequentially resulting in less people evacuating or taking other

precautionary methods (Rice 2014). There is also compelling evidence that when acts of

nature devastate communities with fires, droughts, hurricanes or flooding, statistics show an

increase in violence against women (Parkinson and Zara 2013, 1). These figures have been

documented after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, Bangladesh’s 2007 cyclone, New Zealand’s 2010

earthquake, The United States 2005 hurricane and Australia’s 2009 bushfires (Parkinson and

Zara 2013, 1-6). This relationship between women and natural disasters directly correlates to

the early witch-hunts, when persecuted witches were often held liable for droughts, famine

and plagues (Bever 2008, 215). The 2010 study Intimate partner violence and Hurricane

Katrina: Predictors and Associated Mental Health Outcomes recorded an increase of 98 per

cent in men’s violence towards women (Schumacher, et al., 2010, 594). The study concluded

that the “risk of [intimate partner violence] is increased following large-scale disasters”

(Schumacher et al. 2010, 601). Similarly, an article posted in the Australian Journal of

Emergency Management stated that Australia’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires also saw an

increase in domestic violence against women (Parkinson and Zara 2009, 28). Researchers

Debra Parkinson and Claire Zara interviewed and recorded the experiences of thirty-eight

women, with one case manager stating the insensitivity of our own police force when dealing

with these threatening matters, “So much has been justified as a result of the fires ... so much

has been fobbed off. So many women have gone to police and been told by police, ‘Things

will settle down again’. The responsibility is back on the women” (Parkinson and Zara 2009,

31). The study concludes that in the aftermath of Black Saturday, the basic rights of women

and children to exist without violence was overshadowed in the disaster’s aftershock to

entrenched male privilege, where domestic violence is excusable if a man’s anger stems from

the stress, loss and grievance that was felt by many in the wake of the fires (Parkinson and

Zara 2009, 33).

Although these forms of abuse are not performed with public burnings, hangings and

drownings, they do make a strong argument for the way women continue to be perceived as

the weaker and more vulnerable sex. It also shows the unconscious parallel patriarchal

society makes between women and nature that continues to brand women as ‘Other’.

The strong association of women and nature is evidenced in the history of art, language and

philosophy. Examples of this are seen in Lord Byron’s 1813 poem The Bride of Abydos with

the line, “Where the virgins are as soft as the roses they twine” (Byron 2012, 232), and in

Richard Polwhele’s 1790 poem The Unsex'd Females:

With bliss botanic as their bosoms heave, still pluck forbidden fruit, with mother eve,

for puberty in signing florets pant, or point the prostitution of a plant; dissect its organ

of unhallowed lust and fondly gaze the titillating dust (Polwhele 2010, 26).

Likewise, in Rudyard Kipling’s 1885 poem The Female of the Species, this connection is

clear:

When the Himalayan Peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, He shouts to scare the

monster, who will often turn aside. But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant

tooth and nail. For the female of the species is more deadly than the male (Kipling

1919, 112).

Through limericks, anecdotes and poems the male artist has fabricated images of women as

delicate flowers, delectable fruits and deceptive animals, which ominously affect the way

society en masse perceives the female sex. In the book An Introduction to Social Psychology:

Global Perspectives (2014), psychologists James E. Alcock and Stan Sadava argue that our

surrounding culture directly effects how our brains neutrally translate the world around us

(2014, 19). From this perspective the comparative and bigoted depictions of women have

become entrenched in society’s collective psyche, giving attention to the way men mutually

harm women and the environment.

Ecofeminism emerged during the 1970’s Western grassroots movements (Warren and Erkal

1997, 14). It is premised as a branch of feminism that is concerned with critiquing these

parallels between the mistreatment of women, the earth and animals (Plumwood 1993, 19). In

her book Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, Judith Plant claims, “The rape

of the earth, in all its forms, becomes a metaphor for the rape of woman, in all its many

guises” (1989, 5). Ecofeminists reclaimed the imagery and text that subjugated nature and

women by recovering them through artistic practice and poetic writing in order to enact

feminine/feminist spiritualism (Klein 2009, 577). The movement embraced the allocation of

the Earth Mother/ Goddess figure and all titles associated with it; nurturer, life giver, gentle,

and beautiful (Chris 1992, 38). Its theology is concerned with Goddess centred worship based

on concepts of a prehistory that honours coherence between women and nature (Starhawk

1989, 9). The issue with Goddess worship is that it emphasises stereotypes of women as

maternal sympathetic peacekeepers. It is also corrupted with essentialist 2 discourse,

misidentifying feminine spiritual-power with cis-woman biology.

In this research, I would argue that unlike the image of the Goddess, the figure of the witch

serves to turn against gendered stereotypes and provides a heteroglossic narrative; not

feminine or masculine, not white or black, but vibrating somewhere in-between. This can be

understood in Wicca’s theology, duotheism; where a witch is comprised of equal parts male

and female (Wise 2004, 199). Furthermore, while the current title of witch is predominantly

tied to women, the Middle English word wicche did not segregate the feminine and masculine

(Bosworth and Toller 1998, 1986). By extension, the etymology and theology of the witch

offers the potential to rethink gender essentialist polarities and binaries. This approach to

gender speaks of inclusivity towards LGBTQIA+ members, as the figure of the witch offers

the tools conductive to deconstruct beliefs on gender, sexual orientation or preference.

2.5 Reactivating Power: Reclaiming the Witch Figure

“To reclaim the word witch is to reclaim our right, as women, to be powerful”

– Starhawk 1989, 21

In order to understand the witch archetype as a metaphor for alterity and as a symbol of

power for LGBTQIA+ groups, reclaiming the term ‘witch’ outside of its negative

associations is vital. Instances of how the title ‘witch’ has been used as a taunt for patriarchal

oppression can be found in Lina Hults’ book The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in

Early Modern Europe (2005). In it Hults declares that artists such as Albrecht Dürer and

Wombs, breasts, and childbearing capabilities were just a few universal essentials women were expected to share in the transcending story of womanhood. This essentialist view collectively assumed by first wave and second wave feminism continues to be challenged by intersectional feminism today. Champagne, Rosaria. 1995. "Feminism, Essentialism, and Historical Context”. Women’s Studies 25 (1): 95.

Hans Baldung depicted the witch in art to function as dirty jokes for “learned men” to laugh

at women’s grotesque nature (Hults 2005, 96). These tropes of the witch as a figure of abject

horror continue in contemporary settings. As Barbara Creed highlights, the theme of female

power and mysticism has been adapted into horror films such as The Exorcist (1973) and

Carrie (1976) with an emphasis on puberty, and menstruation in particular, as a signifier for

the development of supernatural powers (Creed 1993, 77).

As the historical image of the witch has become a wicked, wart-ridden caricature (Purkiss

1996, 127) these forms of verbal violence occur as taunts to dismantle women in power

(Tamayo 2009, 281). These systems of oppression are still concerned with the form of blame

and abuse historical witches experienced. Therefore, modern depictions of witches continue

to be victims of patriarchal oppression and essentialist discourse and have caused the term

‘witch’ to be habitually used as a sexually demeaning connotation. An example of this

occurred in March 2011, when the first Australian female Prime Minister Julia Gillard was

attacked with the slogan ‘ditch the witch’ by supporters of opposition leader Tony Abbot

(Woodward 2013, 54). More recently the same slur occurred during Democratic Nominee

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election campaign, when a leaked email from Clinton’s campaign

chairman John Podesta surfaced. The email in question was an invitation to Marina

Abramovic’s Spirit Cooking performance (Mainville 2016). This email made Clinton the

interest of conspiracy theories, resulting in far-right radio host Rick Wiles vehemently

announcing her as the “High Priestess of Witchcraft” who encourages “raw Satanism,” on his

program Right Wing Watch (Mainville 2016). Political allegiances aside, what these assaults

signify on a larger scale is that women are still perceived as easy targets.

Feminist philosopher Kimberly Ann Wells states that, “looking at the witch is a

fundamentally feminist project…[it] is part of a feminist search for changing epistemologies

of womanhood” (Wells 2007, 10). In the structures of patriarchal oppression, subjugation and

humiliation, it has become customary to use degrading words that demoralise women. The

act of reclaiming terms that are used as insults against women such as ‘cunt’ ‘bitch’ and ‘slut’

are prevalent feminist strategies (Krolokke and Sorensen 2005, 139) that can be applied to the

figure of the witch as a way to change the epistemologies of female identifying experiences.

An example of this reclamation occurred when the first SlutWalk rally took place in 2011; it

began as a protest march to end rape culture and victim blaming (Mendes 2015, 9). SlutWalk

now takes place around the globe, where women adorn themselves in clothing stereotypically

related to being a ‘slut’ in order to invert the dominance of the word and to use it as an

empowering strategy of self-proclamation (Mendes 2015, 9). Perhaps the most iconic

reclamation that continues to be cited and repeated is in the Vagina Monologues. In

playwright Eve Ensler’s monologue Reclaiming Cunt (1996), the derogatory term is

discussed enthusiastically. It begins with the actor declaring her love for the word. She then

goes on to dissect each letter, spelling them out as an acrostic poem (Ensler 2000, 29). These m (E

feminist strategies of reclamation, while varied in their approaches, tackle the oppressing

forces that twisted these words against women. This creative practice research utilises a

similar method of reclamation in order to liberate the witch figure as a symbol of alterity and

power.

2.6 Queer Witches

An important theoretical framework for this research is feminism, which frames the political

agency of the ‘witch’ as activated in the LGBTQIA+ community. In her book The Future of

Feminism (2011), contemporary theorist Sylvia Walby claims that, “Feminism is not dead.

This is not a postfeminist era. Feminism is still vibrant, despite declarations that it is over…

Feminism is taking powerful new forms, which may be unrecognisable to some” (Walby

2011, 14). These new forms reject the singular term feminism for the pluralism of

‘feminisms’ with intersectional feminism, as introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989

(Crenshaw 1989, 140). This theory advocates for differences within feminist thought; one

that includes the marginalised and oppressed issues of racism, sexism, homophobia,

transphobia, ableism and classism as interconnected problems (Crenshaw 1989, 140). This

erodes the notion of a singular or universal feminist agenda and instead elects a heteroglossic

coexistence of dialogues (Drake 1997, 107). Iris Marion Young proposes that women should

be reconceived as a ‘series’, a kind of group that is non-unified but vast, multifaceted,

layered, complex, and overlapping (Young 1994, 713).

Essentialist frameworks of first and second wave feminism placed gender in two distinct

paradigms– male and female. Based on clichéd biology and personality traits, homogenous

characteristics were applied to both men and women in order to solidify the binary between

genders (Stone 2011, 394). For example, biologically it can be assumed that all women will

experience childbirth and their “essence can be seen as originating from psychological

characteristics, such as nurturance, empathy, or supportiveness” (Wong 275, 1999).

Therefore, essentialism assumes that all women share in the same journey of womanhood.

Unsurprisingly, anti-essentialism rejects these assumptions on the grounds that essentialism

does not acknowledge non-binary or transgender individuals, queer identities or women of

colour (Grillo 19, 1995). Bell Hooks’ essay Essentialism and Experience problematizes the

reductive notions of essentialism with an intersectional approach by discussing the

significance of identity politics. She states, “identity politics emerges out of the struggles of

oppressed or exploited groups to have a standpoint on which to critique dominant structures,

a position that gives purpose and meaning to struggle” (Hooks 180, 1991).

In this way the ‘witch’, as a symbol of feminist alterity, breaks down essentialist frameworks.

Elizabeth Plummer declares that the alterity of the witch accomplishes this by eluding “an

endless succession of eithers and ors: virgin or mother, nurturer or amazon, wife or whore,

daughter or mother, angel or temptress” (Plummer 2002, 187). This politicised figure of the

witch acknowledges diversity. Therefore, the heteroglossic nature of contemporary

‘feminisms’ and intersectional feminism reframes the ‘witch’ as a complex and multifaceted

figure. Consequently, the LGBTQIA+ community are embracing the witch as a symbol of

alterity, activism and spiritualism.

Addressing the violence and oppression of gender and sexuality Silvia Federici traces the

changing views on sexuality, specifically the development of homosexuality as taboo during

the late middle ages and the witch-hunts:

Homosexuality, which in several parts of Europe was still fully accepted during the

Renaissance, was weeded out in the course of the witch-hunt. So fierce was the

persecution of homosexuals that its memory is still sedimented within our language.

‘Faggot’ reminds us that homosexuals were at times the kindling for the stakes upon

which witches were burned… (2004, 197).

The witch, and the men that burned with them, are examples of individuals blamed for

progressing beyond their prescribed gender roles, and therefore wield incredible and fearful

power. This is also why the figure of the witch has become an iconic figure for the

LGBTQIA+ community.

In his article Why Gay Men are Obsessed with Witches (2015), writer Matt Baume posits that

the relationship between the gay community and the witch stems from a feeling of kinship,

“No wonder gay men love witches — they’re everything we could ever want to be, and they

know our pain” (2015). Baume relates the mythology of the witch as masquerading to the

reality much LGBTQIA+ members’ face, the anxieties of having to pass as straight

depending on the social affair, much like “Angelica Houston in The Witches… [gays] slip

into disguise, painfully cloaking their true forms in dreary camouflage” (2015). Elatedly he

goes onto say that, “under cover of night, in the company of their coven, they cast off the

boring cloak of the day to dance and drink complicated frothing potions like eye of newt and

champagne mimosas” (2015). Here the image of the exiled witch that has mastered the

magical fearlessness of self-possession has become an influential symbol for individuals that

are placed at the margins of society.

Similarly, Arthur Evans’ book Witchcraft and Gay Counterculture is a call to arms on the

importance of gay men not only looking to the witch as a symbol of strength but as a way to

locate their spirituality within Pagan religions (1978, 22). Evans’ book spurred on The

Radical Faeries society during the 1960s counterculture movement as an attempt to escape

the effects of organised, male-centred religions (Morgensen 2009, 91). Founder of the group

Mitch Walker claims that, “the Radical Faerie movement pioneers a new seriousness about

gayness, its depth and potential, thereby heralding a new stage in the meaning of Gay

Liberation” (1997). This liberation sought to embody a comprehensive collection of

identities, genders, and sexualities and was motivated by ritualised transformative play as a

way to challenge any fixed perceptions of gender roles and sex (Adler 2006, 362). Fabled

witches, and the individuals that were executed for witchcraft were born into circumstances

beyond their control, much like the society today that condemns people whose sexuality and

gender do not prescribe to conservative views on femininity and masculinity or sexual

orientation. This act of reclamation has created a space of acceptance, where witches can

gather freely to love and support each other in the face of adversity.

There is however a complication to this reclamation, because while Western society has

moved on from the image of the witch as genuine and tangible, for many developing

countries the witch is still ripe, real, and treacherous, where the title witch is not just a taunt

but also a death threat. Therefore, this practice research highlights the tensions between my

Anglo-Indian heritage and the witch figure as both a cause for persecution and a symbol of

emancipation by investigating how the figure of the witch is still heavily threatened in India.

2.7 Voices of Others: Witchcraft in India

The inspiring transformation of the term ‘witch’ is only occurring in a geographically limited

context. The 2016 census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics detailed that 15,219

Australians verified their religion as Pagan, and 6,616 people as Wiccan (Australian Bureau

of Statistics 2016), while almost one million Americans identified as Wiccan or Pagan in the

Pew Research Centre’s 2014 Survey (Pew Research Centre 2014, 159). However, ‘witch’ as

a pejorative term and the accusation of witchcraft directed at women of colour continues to

lead to acts of violence. The United Nations Women’s Rights investigators have stated that in

countries including Gambia, India, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania and

Uganda alleged Witches are being killed, and that these events are becoming commonplace

(Evans 2009).

Little research has been dedicated to witch-hunts in India, in spite of them being a regular

occurrence, and even fewer archival records detail its history. The research that has been

conducted argues that while there are some similarities that can be drawn between the history

of early European and the New England witch-hunts, particularly in the fear associated with

witchcraft and the way women are principally targeted as witches, a cross-cultural

examination indicates that the concept of magic continues to be ingrained into the fabric of

Indian society (Baglari 2015, 130-136). However, it is also important to note that while

speaking about magic and witchcraft in the broad sense of these terms, not everyone in India

is committed to its existence.

The influence of magic and witchcraft and those that wield it is ancient. In India, it had its

place in society and was believed to be beneficial as well as malevolent (Saletore 1981, 5). In

the 4th century BC, guidelines, fines and punishments helped categorise what forms of

witchcraft were permissible (Saletore 1981, 5). Witchcraft used to affect matters of the heart,

such as relationships and love, was acceptable but if the sorcery was insidious fines ranging

from 200-500 panas had to be forfeited, and in more serious cases fines were paid in limbs or

at worst, death (Saletore 1981, 5). Witches also performed essential roles in royal and public

life, working for kings, and teaching at universities (Saletore 1981, 6-8). Taxila, Nalanda and

Vikramashila were some of the most ancient universities in the world, and teachings at the

time were not concerned with the secularisation of ideas, therefore magic, science,

philosophy and religion were intertwined (Saletore 1981, 8). This history and legacy of magic

in India can be traced back to the four sacred Hindu Texts known as the Vedas complied

between 1200-800 BC (Novak 1994, 24). Atharvaveda, one of the four Veda texts included

hymns on Indian ceremonial magic (Saletore 1981, 7). It encompassed charms to ward of

fever and diseases, in addition to spells to allure a lover, whereas the Rigveda Vedic text,

delved into the impact of demonic spirits (Saletore 1981, 61). These diabolic beings caused

natural disasters such as floods, droughts, death and famine. They took the forms of beasts

and people, and are depicted with backwards facing feet (Saletore 1981, 87, 116).

Figure 4. Krishna-Abhisarika Nayika meets a witch and snakes on the way to meeting her lover. Image.

Accessed September 9, 2017. http://vmis.in/ArchiveCategories/collection_gallery_ zoom?id=491&siteid=4351&minrange=0&maxrange=0&assetid=27919

&self_archive_id=32059&index=3#focused_div.


While the Veda texts do not condemn women as witches as the Malleus Maleficarum did,

Indian society and its patriarchal religions and customs still established a sexist culture. Bride

burning, honour killings, female infanticide and witchcraft related murders are all forms of

‘femicide’, or female genocide (Kalaiyarasi 2015, 51). Arguable this has been occurring for

centuries but only in recent years have authorities begun implementing strategies, policies

and laws to restrain gender-based violence (Yee 2013, 1445-1446).

Witch-hunting has a long history in India (Sinha 2007, 1674) but the earliest evidence of

witch-hunts in the country was only recorded in 1792 by British official John Shore, who

wrote about the trialling and persecution of witches in Santhal (Sinha 2007, 1674). When the

British invaded India in 1858, witch-hunting and witch styled executions in England had

been prohibited for 143 years, but the belief in witches was still ripe. British official, Dr

Francis Buchanan identified his opinions on witches in India by stating that, “25 children

died annually through the malevolence of witches in Bhagalpur” (Sinha 2007, 1674). While

French naturalist Victor Jacquemon wrote in his Letters from India (1834) "I know no

country on earth where so many witches could be enlisted for Macbeth, if, instead of three,

Shakespeare had wanted a hundred thousand" (Jacquemont 1834, 126). Here Jacquemon is

not only writing about the prejudiced belief that Indians embody an innate mysticism, but

also a partisan judgment that Indian women are grotesque in nature, by further stating that “I

have never seen anywhere such hideous witches as in Kashmir. The female race is

remarkably ugly” (Jacquemont 1834, 126). These beliefs of Indians and their customs as

primitive and barbaric soon outweighed the European belief in witchcraft, and rapidly led to a

prohibition against witch hunting as a way to ‘educate’ the population (Sinha 2007, 1674).

Major Wilkinson, a political agent for the British, viewed the witch executions being carried

out in India as ‘barbaric’, an ironic slur to use against India, as witch-hunting was also part of

the not too distant history of Europe. Moreover, the term ‘barbaric’ is used to emphasis the

division between the enlightened and educated colonisers against the primitive and savage

colonised (Rattansi 2007, 31).

The ban on witch hunts in India between 1840-1850, particularly in the Singhbhum district of

the Chhotanagpur did not stop witch killings, but rather escalated them (Sinha 2007, 1675).

While the ban was enforced to dismantle the belief in witchcraft, the British “failed to

acknowledge the degree to which the notion witchcraft was socially embedded and

universally believed in as a matter of common sense” (Sinha 2007, 1674-1675). As stated

earlier, very little evidence was recorded of witch-hunting; this is believed to be because the

killing of witches was not understood as an immoral or illegal act (Sinha 2007, 1674).

Therefore, the local Santal people believed that the ban actually endorsed witches and

witchcraft to thrive, and led to a surge in witch-hunting (Sinha 2007, 1674). This unearthed

history of the British rule in India is now viewed as an act of resistance against colonial rule.

An example of this resistance is the Ulgylan song, a political anthem sung by the Jharkhand

people that put witches, Europeans and other castes into the same category:

Oh Kill the Witch, such the poison,

Oh kill, kill

O Father, kill the Europeans, the other castes

O kill, kill (Sinha 2007, 1672-1676). These witches of India resemble the women of Federici’s, Leeson’s and Russ’ research,

where the witch, and the women persecuted for witchcraft, act as collateral damage in the

conflict for social and political rule. Today women continue to be accused, tortured and

murdered if labelled as a Daayan, a term for ‘witch’ in South Asia (Reevanya 2010, 223).

The term has become so loaded that the bill Women Prevention and Protection Atrocities was

passed in 2016 that now makes it illegal to call a woman a Daayan in India’s largest state

Rajasthan in order to stop the defamation and killing of women (The Prevention of

Witchcraft Bill 2016, s.3). According to the Central Ministry of Home Affairs, an estimated

two thousand, two hundred and fifty-seven women have been killed since the year 2000 after

being accused of witchcraft, with many deaths still unreported (Burke and Chaurasia 2015).

The contemporary narration of witchcraft continues to be whitewashed and appropriated

without acknowledging its traditions outside of a European context. The problem goes far

beyond appropriating the witch figure when women of colour are killed once their bodies

become associated with magic. This paradoxical implication of women of colour suffering

from the title ‘witch’, while Anglo culture appropriates and embraces it; highlights the

exclusionary issues within feminist thought. African-American feminist author Audre

Lorde’s essay “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” explains that female power and beliefs

activated by Western history or mythology do not accomplish a universal advocacy for

women everywhere (Lorde 2007, 66). The predominantly Eurocentric reciting of the history

of the witch figure highlights, “the destructive forces of racism and separation between

women – the assumption that the herstory and myth of white women is the legitimate and sole

herstory and myth of all women to call upon for power and background” (Lorde 2007, 69).

By aligning the image of the witch alongside intersectional feminist thought, the figure can

be understood from multiple narratives, which includes the voices of the presently oppressed.

Although the historical witch figure is firmly anchored in our collective imaginations, the

witch is a product of a construction that has changed throughout the course of history through

myth, tradition and gender. This research examines how the witch has revolutionised from a

specific figure to a collective appropriation that can offer race, sex and gender minorities

strength to create, self-actualise, and politicise.

III

The Witch As Artist: Ritual / Residue / Alterity

/

3.1 Introduction

By aligning myself with the image of the witch, my practice speaks of mythology, history,

activism and rebellion. Here an artist, creator or maker associated with the image of the

witch, activates the witch as a field of possibilities rather than a temporary reference point.

This chapter examines these influences of the witch by investigating multidisciplinary artists

that voice these themes within their practice by exploring cultural mythologies, personal

histories, political activism and gender and sexual rebellion. These themes are separated and

overlap over three subheadings: Performance Rituals, Documented Residue and Feminine

Alterity. Amid the chaos of vast, multifaceted, layered, complex and overlapping narratives I

aim to examine artists that are finding fluidity in the heteroglossic nature of intersectional

feminism. By acknowledging this, the contextual review for this project has been approached

as an intersectional case study in order to observe and comprehend creative practices and

their methods by exploring performance rituals, documented residue and feminine alterity

through embodied performance, photography, experimental sound art, political action, and

sculpture.

Performance Rituals are analysed in the context of artists and collectives W.I.T.C.H, Yoko

Ono, Mary Wigman and Jill Orr. Their practices are examined to recognise how they each

distinctively utilise performance formalities and procedures as ritual. Additionally, the image

of the witch is identified literally and/or figuratively within each of these artist’s practices to

speak of incited political action, cathartic expression and self-empowerment. In the section,

Documented Residue the works of Janine Antoni, Mary Beth Edelson and Ana Mendieta are

studied to comprehend the aftermath of performance. While the very nature of performance is

ephemeral, these artists leave ghostly shadows behind as evidence of a performed body.

These take the form of sculptural objects, blackened gallery floors and bodily imprints on

walls and in soil. Here embodied performance transcends its ephemerality in captured

photographic images, where the artist’s energy continues to linger. In the section Feminine

Alterity, the works of Catherine Opie, Qasim Riza Shaheen, Baseera Kahn and collaborative

duo Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek are examined. These queer artists and

artists of colour explore gender, sexuality and culture outside of colonialist hetero-normative

frameworks and speak of empowered and embodied forms of alterity. Each of the twelve

artists explored within these three categories speaks unapologetically of emancipation and

self-actualisation for their political beliefs, cultures, bodies and identities and are

consequently regarded as witch allies within the framework of this research and as a coven,

with myself as the thirteenth member.

3.2 Performance Rituals

Ritual as embodied performance can be seen in the works of W.I.T.C.H, Yoko Ono, Mary

Wigman and Jill Orr. Each of these artists adopts ceremonial procedures through bodily

actions, communities, and vocal performances. Their diverse practices see overlaps in

embodied performance strategies; expression, movement, and intention. W.I.T.C.H unites

communities as covens through performative activism, while Yoko Ono’s live sound

practice, recorded albums and text works express disruptive screams, and invites the audience

to scream with her. Subsequently, Mary Wigman’s avant-garde dance sees her body offered

to the image of the witch in possessed bodily movements, and Jill Orr’s performances

embrace fear and vulnerability as methods to critique the injustices constructed by colonial

and patriarchal systems.

3.2.1 W.I.T.C.H

"We are WITCH. We are WOMAN. We are LIBERATION. WE are WE."

W.I.T.C.H (Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) was founded during the

second wave of feminism, on Halloween 1968 by a subset assembly of women from the New

York Radical Women group (Echols 1989, 76). W.I.T.C.H was concerned with an inclusive

form of feminism that advocated for women’s rights, and black liberation and opposed the

Vietnam War, using collective political action (Echols 1989, 299). W.I.T.C.H.’s

demonstrations took the form of collaborative performances and were theatrical, extravagant,

witty and sharp.

The group were renowned for congregating in stereotypical witches’ garb: black flowing

dresses accessorised with witches hats and broomsticks, accompanied with picket signs and

printed hexes. W.I.T.C.H’s inaugural action occurred on All Hallows Eve in 1968 when

thirteen women descended (Freeman 1969, 63) in the financial heart of America, casting

hexes and incantations against the wealth hungry institution of Wall Street (Bobel and Lorber

2010, 46), chanting “Wall Street, Wall Street, mightiest wall of all street. Trick-or-treat,

corporate elite, up against the Wall Street!” (Press 2017). Their spells and enchantments

came to fruition when The Stock Exchange dropped the next day (Bobel and Lorber 2010,

46). In the months and years following, W.I.T.C.H set their sights on other male-dominated

dwellings, patriarchal structures and communal spaces, including exclusive male bars, adult

entertainment venues, bridal conventions and even the price of public transportation (Echols

1989, 97-98).

Figure 5. W.I.T.C.H. 1968. Performance still. Performed New York, Wall Street. Image. Accessed March 4,

2017. http://www.lunalunamagazine.com/blog/witch-womens-lib.

The group had no prerequisites or requirements for joining, they would instead hand leaflets

out as a way of engaging individuals, which stated:

If you are a woman and dare to look within yourself, you are a Witch. You make your

own rules. You are free and beautiful. You can be invisible or evident in how you

choose to make your witch-self known. You can form your own Coven of sister

Witches (13 is a cozy number for a group) and do your own actions... You are a


Witch by saying aloud, "I am a Witch" three times, and thinking about that. You are a

Witch by being female, untamed, angry, joyous, and immortal (Wessinger 1993, 177).

These political performances began to occur across America, with reports of W.I.T.C.H

covens also gathering in Washington D.C, Chicago and Illinois (Brownmiller 1999, 49). The

meaning behind the acronym W.I.T.C.H also increased and modified to suit the needs and

themes of each protest. From ‘Women Interested in Toppling Consumer Holidays’ when

protesting Mother’s Day, to ‘Women Incensed at Telephone Company Harassment’ when

protesting against Bell Telephones company policies and even ‘Women's Independent

Taxpayers, Consumers and Homemakers’ (Freeman 2010) that invented a catchy hex:

Double, bubble, war and rubble, when you mess with women, you'll be in trouble.

We're convicted of murder if abortion is planned. Convicted of conspiracy if we fight

for our rights. And burned at the stake when we stand up to fight (Freeman 2010).

On the anniversary of W.I.T.C.H’s first performance protest that cursed Wall Street, a

Chicago W.I.T.C.H coven took to hexing the Federal Building during the Chicago Seven trial

chanting "Our sister justice lies chained and tied, we curse the ground on which she died"

(Freeman 2010). A photograph of the event portrays thirteen figures dressed in black, holding

hands and skipping in a circle. The kinetic energy of the photograph captures their black

cloaks rippling and whirling around them. Their blurred faces reveal smiles, and laughter.

This is the splendour of the witch: an angry activist, spitting venomous curses at enemies and

at the same time exultant, resilient and not singular, but many. Cynthia Eller, author of Living

in the lap of the Goddess (1993), explains that the iconography and metaphor of the witch

provided these feminist activists with an opportunity to reshape their own narrative, because

while the witch represents “everything women were taught not to be: ugly, aggressive,

independent, and malicious (Eller 1993, 55)” in the hands of feminists the witch can be

transformed, “not into the fairy tale "good witch," but into a symbol of female power,

knowledge, independence, and martyrdom" (Eller 1993, 55).

Figure 6. W.I.T.C.H. 1969. Performance still. Performed Chicago, Chicago Federal Building. Image. Accessed February 18, 2017. https://media1.fdncms.com/inlander/imager/u/original/2997539/artsculture2-1-

7d387886100f7d68.jpg.

The image also strikes similarities to early 17th century woodcut prints that depicted the

witches Sabbath; witches dancing in a circle, hand in hand with demons, wearing black

cloaks and witches hats. Members of W.I.T.C.H echo the memory of the women trialled,

tortured, drowned, and burnt as witches during the Middle Ages. They activate the symbol of

the witch as an unruly, fiery figure that uses magic as an equaliser against patriarchal

prejudiced systems. The spells and hexes used in their performances add to the legacy and

mythology of the witch, while the number they gather in references Margaret Murray’s

theories of Witch Sabbaths, which she argued consisted of thirteen members (Murray 2014,

181).


Figure 7. Gauzzo, Francesco Maria. 1486. Witches Sabbath. Printed in Compendium Maleficarum: The Montague Summers Edition. 1988. New York, New York: Dover Publications.

The group was unfortunately short lived; after two years of political performative protest the

group dismantled (Freeman 2010) but their legacy still remains today. As Margot Adler’s

writes in her book Drawing Down the Moon (2006):

Feminist Witches have stated that Witchcraft is not incompatible with politics, and

that the Craft is a religion historically conceived in rebellion and can therefore be true

to its nature only when it continues its ancient fight against oppression (Adler 2006,

173).

This ancient fight against oppression continues to see the witch reanimated and resurrected.

In November 2016 W.I.T.C.H (Woman Imagining Theoretically Creative Happenings)

landed in Portland, Oregon, and has now cultivated more than 50 active covens in cities


throughout the U.S and internationally (Birnbaum 2017). The core values of the original

W.I.T.C.H coven from 1969 are still present, and have developed into intersectional

feminism. Each coven is asked to follow the same guidelines outlined on the Boston

W.I.T.C.H website:

W.I.T.C.H was always intended to be an international movement. If you aim to start a

chapter in your own city, we ask that you adhere to the following guidelines in order

to be affiliated with us:

1) YOU MUST BE ANONYMOUS

2) YOU MUST BE INTERSECTIONAL

3) YOU MUST DIFFERENTIATE YOUR GROUP WITH THE NAME OF YOUR

CITY

Choose your group members wisely: you are entrusting each other with the

movement.

We encourage people of colour, queer and trans people to be given first dibs for

staring new chapters.

Each group speaks only for itself.

Let’s work always to educate ourselves and grow as intersectional feminists

(W.I.T.C.H Boston n.d.).

Figure 8. W.I.T.C.H PDX Women’s March. 2017. Image. Accessed July 15, 2017.

https://i2.wp.com/hautemacabre.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WITCH-PORTLAND.jpg?resize=750%2C500.

I am drawn to W.I.T.C.H, the short but permanent legacy of the first covens as well as the

current W.I.T.C.H covens that reclaim the Other by exclusively embracing the witch figure as

a political symbol of alterity and intersectionality. W.I.T.C.H’s strategic use of theatricality,

performance and humour is an attempt to disrupt our unjust societies and I believe is a

significant tactic to employ when reclaiming the image of the witch as a political symbol.

Within my creative practice, these strategies acknowledge that the figure of the witch, much

like the women in politics who have been slandered as witches in newspaper caricatures, or

the ugly sexual depravity of witches in Albrecht Dürer’s and Hans Baldung’s woodcut prints

and paintings, have been used as a punchline for centuries, and embracing the humour of the

witch helps highlight and invert this dichotomy.


3.2.2 Yoko Ono

Similar to W.I.T.C.H, performance artist Yoko Ono saw political and sovereign power in the

figure of the witch. Throughout my research I have consequently been interested in analysing

Ono as a contemporary witch figure. Ono’s practice is multidisciplinary, fluctuating between

filmmaker, singer, artist, activist, author, and poet. Commonly allied with the Fluxus art

movement of the 1970s-80s her oeuvre is interdisciplinary and experimental (Ultan 2001 30-

36).

Her 1974 album A Story features the song Yes I’m A Witch, which she later used as the title

for her 2007 album of remixes and 2016 follow up album titled Yes I’m a Witch Too. In the

chorus Ono unapologetically declares herself as a witch while using feminist strategies to

emphatically reclaim the term witch and bitch in the same sentence, “yes, I'm a witch, I'm a

bitch, I don't care what you say, my voice is real, my voice is truth, I don’t fit in your ways

(Ono 2007). The lyrics of Yes I’m a Witch sees Ono openly embrace herself as Other and

powerfully articulates the importance of listening to the Other. The chorus ends with the line

“I don’t fit in your ways” (Ono 2007). This again calls out the oppressive forces that seek to

silence women’s voices. Yoko Ono’s political and creative methods refuse to surrender to

society’s ageist, sexist and racist tropes.

The abstract body, and the disembodied voice are prevailing themes in the performance and

sound works of Yoko Ono. Her instructional work Voice Piece for Soprano (2010) reduces

the participant’s body to an abstracted sound, and her own body to written words. The work

includes three directions for participants, 1. Scream against the wind, 2. Scream against the

wall, 3. Scream against the sky (Persse 2010). A microphone and a pair of speakers

accompanied these handwritten instructions by the artist, exhibited in the Museum of Modern

Art (Persse 2010).

In the quiet and structured setting of the art museum, visitors followed Ono’s texts and broke

the silence of the space with loud, pulsating screams. The outcome of responding to these

instructions is an abstracted aural voice. Ono’s humble poetic writings give a rebellious and

primal voice to anyone that chooses to interact with the work, a voice that leaves the body to

resonate and fill the gallery space. Through the relationship that is forged between the artist’s

written voice and the voice of the participant, the work becomes performative, collaborative,

activated and consummated.

Figure 9. Ono, Yoko. 2010. Voice Piece for Soprano. Image. Accessed September 10, 2016. https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/102535659_0.jpg?w=297&h=300.

Her recorded sound works from the late 1960s and early 1970s depart from her embodied

performance works and instructional pieces. Ono’s abject sonic sounds, heard in her songs

‘Why?’ (1970) and ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mommy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the

Snow)’ (1969/1971) while disembodied, are still performative because they voice a bodily

presence within the listener. The auditory texture of her voice echoes archaic quivering


screams in ‘Why’ (1970). Ono repeats the word ‘why’ with a noise that sounds as if it has

been dredged and dug up from the pit of her stomach, a sound that threatens the limits of

what sound, noise and music can be. And while at a superficial level, the use of the scream

may indicate a connection between Ono’s work and the vocal terror of avant-garde artist

Diamanda Galas, Galas’ own account of her work refutes this (Brown 2016). As a

consequence, Galas’ work has proven unhelpful in the development of my research, while

Ono’s central influence remains.

In ‘Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mommy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)’ Ono possesses

numerous voices, or at least they possess her. In Shelina Brown’s article Scream from the

Heart: Yoko Ono’s Rock and Roll Revolution, Brown’s interpretation of ‘Don’t Worry

Kyoko’ detects three distinct sounds and voices escaping Ono’s singular body “…that of the

kabuki vibrato, the alto voice repeatedly intoning the words ‘don’t worry’, and a high-

pitched, cyborgian vocality that suggests a machine-like, synthesised quality – one that

vacillates between artificial and hyper-feminine” (Brown 2012, 107 – 123). Each one clashes

into each other, acknowledging one another while shredding each other apart. And while her

body is not physically present in the auditory sound, her uncontrollable, cacophonous and

disorderly vocalisations nevertheless question gender and racial expression; who is ‘allowed’

to sound this way, to be aggressive and possessive of their voice? As an Asian American

female artist, Ono’s voice signifies conditions of alterity, but rather than the sound of abject

submission and anguish, it pushes its conditions of Otherness and conveys a female voice that

is daringly offensive and therefore thought provoking.

Tamara Levitz’s article ‘The Unfinished Music of John and Yoko: Imagining Gender and

Racial Equality in the Late 1960s’ further examines the presence of Ono’s body by saying

“Ono’s] voice is not beautiful, lyrical, or accompanimental…Rather, it forces an awareness

of Yoko’s very real existence, as it relates imaginatively with listeners’ own inner sounds and

the emotions attached to them” (Levitz 2005, 223). Here the participant (the listener) is once

again vital in activating Ono’s work, just as they were in Voice Piece for Soprano (2010) by

listening to her voice, and allowing it to awaken something deep within their own body and

soul.

Ono’s oeuvre examines gendered discourses and her Eastern cultural, spiritual and

philosophical heritage through performance, writing and voice. It is activated and finalised

with the participation of an audience. These elements of her practice are significant to my

own, as I aim to reclaim my heritage and voice, just as Ono has done, by aligning myself with

the figure of the witch, amplifying my body through my voice and calling to be heard and

then seen in the process.

3.2.3 Mary Wigman

German Dance choreographer Mary Wigman was the celebrated pioneer of Modern Dance

(Reynolds 1999, 297). The innovative avant-garde genre expressed itself as a liberated art

form that united life, physicality and art (Reynolds 1999, 297). This ground-breaking

modern dance emphatically abandoned the archaic traditions of ballet, and instead revered

ordinary actions, and uncorrupted human movement. Renouncing traditional ballet also

resulted in departing from its institutions (Reynolds 1999, 297). This meant a change in

scenery and style from opulent stages and pirouettes, with men organising the show, to

women leading the charge; with female dancers and choreographers deciding movements,

costumes and locations (Reynolds 1999, 297).

Within Expressionist Dance, new styles of movement developed, ones that functioned outside

traditional dance and movement. Wigman believed the historic narrative elements of dance

were limiting, and that rhythmic movement should interchange with time and space, a

concept she coined as Absolute Dance (Reynolds 1999, 297). Dee Reynolds in their article

Dancing as a Woman: May Wigman and “Absolute Dance” describes the power of Absolute

Dance by stating that audiences were invited “to respond empathetically to sensations of

movement and touch, thereby challenging the objectification of the female dancer” (Reynolds

1999, 297). This ability to transform bodily movement into something stimulating, thoughtful

and provocative is evident in Wigman’s performance Hexentanz II or Witch Dance version 2,

performed in 1926. In documentation of the performance, Wigman exaggerates and amplifies

her body percussively through movement. The gravity that ballerinas strive to escape with

jumps and lifts is not evaded by ethereal movements and feathered tutus but honoured and

respected, with Wigman hunched over, situated on the ground, in a state of ritualised trance.

Possessed by her witch character, her body shifts sharply as though her limbs are compelling

the rest of her, creating harsh controlled, and strange contortions as she moves across the

ground. Each movement produced is utterly fearsome.

Figure 10. Wigan, Mary. Hexentanz II. 1962. Image. Accessed May 19, 2016. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.timetoast.com/public/uploads/photos/11021764/mw.jpg.

In this dance the central focus is movement itself and this is reiterated through the musical

accompaniment. Rather than the expected orchestral music, the naked percussions of beating

drums complement the performance. Every beat of the drum is matched with an extension of

Wigman’s body in order to establish a powerfully distorted rhythmic procession.

In this way, Wigman’s work defied traditional ballet. With her feet planted firmly on the

ground she explores the mythology and symbolism of the witch by embodying female

power.. I have an affinity for her bodily positioning with the ground in Hexentanz II as my

performances honour the relationship between the body and the earth. Her ritualised dance

carries not only movement but also meaning alongside her spine-tingling rhythms. By

investigating Wigman’s performance this project explores her uncanny sentiments and

progressive gestural bodily actions. Like Wigman, I adopt embodied performance and ritual

movement in order to conjure the very witch that haunted Hexentanz II, inviting it into a

contemporary setting, to use as a metaphor for alterity within my own practice.


3.2.4 Jill Orr

Australian artist Jill Orr ritualises environmental, political and social issues while centring the

body in live performance. Her performance She had long golden hair (1980), presented in

Adelaide as part of the Experimental Art Foundation (EAF) has been described as ‘ritual

humiliation’ (Nelson 2013) and reasserts patriarchal structures in order to deconstruct and

destroy the systematic bias directed towards women. Presented inside an old jam factory

basement, an audio track of male voices chanted gendered slurs and abusive terms, “witch,

bitch, mole, dyke” (Marsh 2008, 18). The tone and abrasiveness of the track was repetitive

and constant, and through the haze of aggressive insults Orr made her way through the

audience clothed in an elegant feminine yellow dress, red lipstick, and her natural lustrous,

glossy hair, towards six small metal chains that dangled from the ceiling. As she congregated

with the hanging chains, she began to separate her hair into sections, locking each section to a

chain above her. The audio track changed as she became increasingly rooted in position by

the chains. A soundtrack of Orr’s voice then played accounts of women who have had their

hair removed, often violently at the hands of another, with one account stating, “when I came

home late last night my father was furious, he cut my hair. While another expressed “they

raped me, bashed me and shaved my head” (Marsh 2008, 15).

Figure 11. Orr, Jill. 1980. She had long golden hair. Image. Accessed August 12, 2018. http://annemarsh.com.au/images/orr_long_golden_hair.png.


Orr was trapped and incarcerated by her own hair, and the symbolic weight of her hair grew

heavier as the track played on. Long hair is symbolically fraught; here Orr’s hair was not

simply hair, but a fetishized symbol of femininity, erotic carnality, submission, youth and

beauty (Synnott 1987, 381). A pair of scissors was offered to the audience, and they were

invited to free Orr from the chains. Each section of hair severed was as a symbol of

liberation, and represented freedom from patriarchy’s possession over women, which has

permitted men to restrict women’s sense of autonomy. Orr was unbound as the last lock of

hair was cut free from the sixth chain, and in a simple act of emancipation, Orr ran her

fingers through her new haircut.

The ritualised female punishment displayed in She had long golden hair draws parallels to

the ways in which women were humiliated in public during the Middle Ages (Bardsley 2006,

1). It was common to be chained, verbally and physically assaulted in public for acts of

disobedience if convicted as a ‘Common Scold’ in (Bardsley 2006, 14). These acts of

disobedience were varied and broad, ranging from accusations of practicing witchcraft, being

opinionated or promiscuous and ‘unnatural acts’ such as having same-sex relations (Bardsley

2006, 6 and 89). Each of these allegations aligns with the terms used against Orr, “witch,

bitch, mole, dyke” (Marsh 2008, 18). Orr uses ritual performative methods to speak out

against the way patriarchal culture distorts women into the inferior and weaker sex, and more

broadly uses performance to speak out against “society’s tendency to construct the Other as

enemy” (Marsh, 2014, 99).

In 2007, Orr delivered her public performance A Prayer that continued to challenge matters

of alterity by responding to the actions of Prime Minister John Howard who deployed an

army of policemen to 70 independent indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, in a

campaign to stop child abuse (Marsh 2014, 99). Orr dressed as a nun, edged her body along

the main street of Darwin, during the bustling weekend markets, etching offerings of solitude

and apology to the indigenous communities by pressing chalk into the pitted bitumen. Her

messages read, “I stand on Larrakia land. I pray for the children” (Gray 2007, 40). Orr’s

threshold for humiliation would have been challenged as spectators both applauded and

harassed her, as she wrote her way in chalk from one end of the street to the other.

Figure 12. Orr, Jill. 2007. A Prayer. Image. Accessed August 12, 2018. https://jillorr.com.au/cms/w/a-prayer-

4.jpg.

In this context, her choice of attire, a traditional Christian Nun’s habit is layered with

symbolism. The Nun in this circumstance embodies the early Christian missions from

Australia’s colonial past, which aimed to civilise and educate the natives (Scrimgeour, 2006,

1). As Germaine Greer wrote in her article debating against Howard’s campaign:

…The "whitefella" believed that they owed it to their God to rescue the benighted

savage, strip him of his pagan culture, clothe his nakedness, and teach him the value


of work. Leaving the original inhabitants alone was never an option; learning from

them was beyond any notion of what was right and proper…any hopes that this

attitude might have changed were dashed two weeks ago, when Prime Minister John

Howard announced a new crusade (Greer 2007).

By dressing as a Nun and surrendering her body to the land, Orr offers an alternative history,

one that combines Australia’s colonialist past, present and future and ignites implications of

responsibility and guilt of Australia’s colonialist past not only onto herself, but one that

engages all of us.

Orr’s performative persona embodies the Other through her ability to shame and disgrace

herself in order to candidly open up discussions on social rights issues. She has stated that her

cathartic performances are “exorcisms of fear” (quoted in Marsh 2014, 99). In She had

golden hair the audience is gifted with the liberating and purifying act of cutting Orr from her

hair, and symbolically freeing her from the fear of feminine tropes and male expectations.

Equally, her performance A Prayer, embodies a Nun that represents white colonial forces, but

rather than attempting to convert those around her, offers compassion and allegiance to the

Larrakia people. Orr’s approach to performance guides my practice as she embraces the fear

of using the body as a material and explores it with ambition. As a performance artist, I

struggle with performance anxiety, and trusting myself and my ideas to guide me through the

work. Orr’s performance process consists of reconsidering herself as an instrument for her

concepts, saying “There is a structure set up so that me, this body, can just be simply a

vehicle of energy, that can go uninterfered with” (quoted in Marsh 2014, 99). Influenced by

Orr’s performance strategies, I have applied a process of my own that adopts ritual methods

as a key strategy, and enables me to move through each ritual meditatively and unreservedly.

Ritualised performative methods are essential explorations and creative methods in my

project. W.I.T.C.H, Yoko Ono, Mary Wigman and Jill Orr, each utilise ritual devices in order

to embody ideas on actions for change, the dominant female voice, and critique on women’s

oppression. Their embodied witch performances, textual screams, and vulnerable actions,

used ritual as strategy to critique and reinterpret how a female body should act and behave

within patriarchal systems.

3.3 Documented Residue

This section considers how ritual gestures are captured in objects and still image. By studying

the aftermath of performance in the works of Janine Antoni, Ana Mendieta and Mary Beth

Edelson, the reverberating residues of embodied performance are presented as an extension

of the performance rather than archived imagery. These artists surpass the temporal and

ephemeral nature of ritual by leaving inked imprints on gallery floors, bodily impressions in

flora and earth and haunting spectres in photographs.

3.3.1 Janine Antoni

Performance artist Janine Antoni utilises her body as an object or entity in order to reconsider

menial tasks as sacred and ritualised ceremonies. With these methods she has

reconceptualised how we process the habitual customs of eating, bathing and cleaning. Her

performances also explore how a body is present and absent, seen and unseen, in the way her

works are exhibited and documented. Her works Lick and Lather (1993) and Loving Care

(1993) require Antoni to use her body as a ceremonial tool, absorbed in ritualised laborious

and cyclic tasks, and both of these works play with themes of presence and absence.

Her work Lick and Lather (1993) consists of fourteen self-portrait identical busts. The busts

reference Greek and Roman classical sculpture, but rather than being carved from marble,

seven are cast from chocolate and the other seven are cast from soap (Horodner 1999). For

the ritualised performance, Antoni re-sculpts the chocolate by licking it, and re-sculpts the

soap by bathing her body with it. Both of these actions are conducted in the privacy of her

home (Horodner 1999). The documented residue of the performances is found in the resulting

marks left on the busts, which are exhibited as ritual objects.

There is a gentle tenderness to how the busts are defaced through the act of bathing and

licking; a quiet erasure and self-destruction. Antoni speaks of the process by stating, “ We

[the soap bust] spent a few hours in the tub together. I slowly washed her down, and she

becomes almost foetal because all her features start to be washed away” (Art21. 2011). The

affectionate language Antoni uses to describe this process speaks to the sensitive nature of

the ritualised gestures involved, of self-destruction through self-care. These dichotomies are

rich within the work, even in the symbolism of the bust itself. Historically, sculptural busts

were created primarily to immortalise important male figures, yet the soap and chocolate

busts were made in likeness of a woman, and were designed to soften and dissolve. Rather

than being a process of self-erasure, Antoni explains that a self-portrait should reflect your

true self, and queries, “are we more ourselves alone at home eating a meal or in the bathtub,

in these everyday activities?” (Antoni 2011).

Figure 13. Antoni, Janine. 1993. Lick and Lather. Image. Accessed July 6, 2018.

http://www.janineantoni.net/lick-and-lather/.

The performing body is missing in the literal sense of the word, but is embodied in the melted

and defaced markings of the sculptural busts, here Antoni is both present and absent, seen

and unseen. All fourteen busts, in various stages of decay, were displayed after being

caressed, washed and licked at the 1993 Venice Biennale. The busts are more akin to ritual

objects, and are ingrained with the markings of a performance.

Antoni’s Loving Care (1993) performance tantalised and provoked my creative processes

early on, through its attentive materiality, ritualised movement, feminist context and residue.

Antoni’s rhythmically focused and gentle approaches to physical movement, sees each of her


extremities carefully considered before they are shifted. The repetitive movement of Antoni’s

black ink laden hair against the gallery floor translates into ritual.

Figure 14. Antoni, Janine. 1993. Loving Care. Image. Accessed July 6, 2018.

http://www.janineantoni.net/loving-care/.

Antoni begins on all fours, dipping her hair into a bucket of dye, before sweeping her body

side to side, allowing her hair to drape, lick and stain the gallery floor. The repetitious

movement of mopping on all fours is also submissive, kowtowing to the spectators, and yet

she holds domain, as the audience traffics themselves out of her way. Here the implications

of gender are exposed, a power play between the domestic, submissive female, the art

institution and the audience. The painterly gestures of her hair against the floor references

Jackson Pollock’s action paintings (Rosenberg 1952, 22). Pollock was considered a male

egocentric “art genius” whose paintings were nothing short of ejaculation (Roazen 1995, 41 –

51). Therefore, Antoni undermines Pollock and other male master artists that dominated the

art gallery and also comments on domestic work. Rather than cleaning a mess, she is making


one by mopping the floor through the ritual of submerging her hair into a bucket of black hair

dye. This gesture comments on the rebellion against the stereotype of the housewife and the

cosmetic alterations women are oppressed by. These contexts create a platform that speaks

out against the patriarchal art world, and out-dated female stereotypes.

Antoni’s practice was the first to ignite my interest in the aftermath and residue of a

performance. In Lick and Lather (1993) the artist’s body continues to resonate and linger

physically and metaphorically on the cast chocolate and soap busts, while in Loving Care the

empty gallery space left with black ink stained floors, reverberates the spirit of the

performance even after its finale, through the photographs and videos that captured the

processes and the outcomes. Moreover, while the materials Antoni employs are

commonplace, as she activates them with her body they surpasses beyond their assumed

application; in these performances chocolate, soap and hair dye are not simply items that fill

a shopping cart but are sacred symbols contextualised by Antoni’s moving body and

ritualised performance. The unobtrusive and unassuming ritualistic elements of these works,

along with the energy that resides in them, informs my own ritual objects of salt, mirrors, soil

and wax, and their documentation, while the concepts behind them consolidate my interests

in feminist thought.

Figure 14.1. Antoni, Janine. 1993. Loving Care. Image. Accessed July 6, 2018.

http://www.marthagarzon.com/contemporary_art/2011/01/janine-antoni-loving-care-lick-and-lather/.


3.3.2 Ana Mendieta

Cuban American performance artist Ana Mendieta is central to my research, as a

multicultural artist whose work was motivated by themes of culture, feminism, life-and-

death, and identity (Blocker 1999, 56-65). While early performance works of Ana Mendieta’s

involved her body in a visceral, fleshly and overt way, her later performances shadowed,

veiled and abstracted her body. These later works concern my practice research, as her

abstracted body and residual marks on earth and paper signify the aftermath of performance

rituals. These ritual motifs are evident in Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales) (1982), the

Imagen de Yagul Series (1973) and in the Earth Body Series (1973).

In the modest and intimate space known as Franklin Furnace in New York City an

unsuspecting audience faced three large sheets of white paper fixed to a wall. ‘White clothes

and animal blood’ was all a press release revealed in the lead up to Mendieta’s performance

Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales) (1982) (Walker 2009). The sound of pounding rhythmic

drums soaks the silence, and Mendieta emerged wearing a white loose pair of pants and top

(Walker 2009). She moved towards a bucket filled with a mixture of animal blood and

tempera paint, and submerged her arms into the crimson concoction. She approached a sheet

of white paper on the wall and flattened her arms and hands against the paper, slipping and

sinking the blood/tempera paint into the paper, she slid her body down the paper to the

ground and made her arms and fingers follow (Walker 2009). Her fingers slid through the

impressions of her arms, leaving track mark imprints, a residual signifier for the journey her

body had made. She repeated this ritual on the remaining two sheets of paper and concluded

the ritual by exiting the space. The residue of this performance exists in the three sheets of

blood-stained paper. They continue to be exhibited as works in and of themselves, but still

carry the weight of Mendieta’s performing body.

Figure 15. Mendieta, Ana. 1982. Body Tracks (Rastros Corporales). Image. Accessed August 20,

2018.https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/11/the-body-is-present-even-if-in-disguise-tracing-the-trace-in-the-artwork-of-nancy-spero-and-ana-mendieta.


Mendieta’s ‘Earth Body’ art is terminology the artist established to explain her practice

which involved inserting her performing body into nature in order to connect ancestral

relationships from the past and present (Viso 2004, 126). These strategies are linked closely

to my own artistic processes of enacting the image of the witch by bridging conversations

between its histories within my own cultural heritage. By exploring the witch from the West

and in India I draw on its mysticism in both regions. These methods allow the artworks to

engage in a virtual discourse with the dead.

My research is particularly interested in Mendieta’s Silueta Series, a photographic sequence

that plays with themes of performance, the body, culture heritage and nature. In the first

photograph of the series Imagen de Yagul (1973) Mendieta investigates her body and its

relationship to the earth by lying nude at the Mesoamerican site of Yagul in a pre-Hispanic

Zapotec tomb (Viso 2004, 52). The photograph captures a formation of jagged rocks that

frame her body while a dense collection of delicate white petal flowers with green stems and

leaves cover her face and breasts; completely obscuring her features. These flowers become

more sporadically placed between her thighs, legs, and arms, and give the effect of her body

being preserved in place for months, years, and even lifetimes, allowing flora to push itself

between her body and trapping her in its environment (Viso 2004, 126).

A later work in the series Earth Body, Untitled (1973) shows an empty embryonic

sarcophagus, dug out in a patch of earth, embodying the absence of Mendieta’s body. It is

framed by an orderly array of weeds and grass that form a rectangle around the empty dirt

cavity. While this work does not directly include the artist’s body, it still references a body

and its connection with the earth. Similarly, the hollowed-out earth suggests the performance

and ritual of the body, the movement of digging and sinking into soil in order to create a

bodily indent and the action of arranging the grass edging in ceremonial procession.

Mendieta’s body is abstracted down to an imprint of distorted long bloody hands in Body

Tracks (Rastros Corporales), and veiled, shadowed and absent in her Silueta and Earth Body

Series. Here, disfiguring and distorting the body through performance is not an act of erasure

but metamorphoses. Through documentation and residual imprint, the artist’s body continues

to exist in her absence. The documented residue of Mendieta’s performance carries a magical

and enchanted energy, one that I aim to infuse into my live performances, as well as in their

aftermath and documentation.

Figure 16. Mendieta, Ana. 1973. Imagen de Yagul (1). Image. Accessed August 20, 2018. https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/93.220/.


Figure 17. Mendieta, Ana. 1973. (Untitled) from Earth Body Series. Image. Accessed August 20, 2018. https://transpersonalspirit.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ana-mendieta-earth-work-3.jpg.


3.3.3 Mary Beth Edelson

Artist Mary Beth Edelson was part of the first generation of artists in America to develop a

creative practice motivated by feminism (Brodsky and Olin 2008, 329). As a founder of the

1970’s Feminist Art Movement, her work was resolutely based on reclaiming and reframing

history through a feminist lens by studying the figure of the goddess (Klein 2009, 575). Her

use of the goddess metaphor, similar to my use of the witch metaphor, represents a symbol of

personal political power. Edelson adopts performative methods by using her body to

construct a new Other by presenting herself as goddess archetypes. She describes her

performative photography (1973) as “a political statement for women that says I am, and I

am large, and I am my body, and I am not going away” (Edelson 1973). There are two stages

to these performance photography rituals. The first ritual occurs during the documentation, as

Edelson embodies the goddess figure for the camera. The second ritual occurs after the

images are developed, when Edelson seals the photographs with energised insignias, and

illustrations.

In her photomontage series, Women/Rising Spirit (1973), Edelson repurposes and reinterprets

herself as 17 empowering female figures, from Wonder Woman to the Hindu Goddess Kali.

Titled Red Kali (1973) she stands tall and naked, with her arms and legs apart. Her hands are

stretched above her head, while her palms face forward and fingers reach up to the sky,

exposing her painted breasts and stomach that are ornamented with concentric rings. The

photograph’s composition angles the view up from below her, which magnifiers her body,

and shrinks us as viewers. While her stance and size are commanding, the illustrations she

shrouds her photographed body with are confronting rather than empowering. With red

markers she has transformed herself into Kali, the Hindu Devi or goddess of life and death,

sexuality and motherhood. Her hand drawn illustrations depict four additional arms that flow

from her shoulders, and hold a severed head, a sword and a ceremonial bowl. She has

additionally drawn herself a necklace of decapitated heads, and a skirt of severed arms.

A third eye decorates her forehead, and out of her crudely drawn mouth, a sharp long red

tongue appears. Lastly, under her legs lies a male body, whose mouth is being crushed under

her foot. I find this image confronting, not for the violence it suggests, but for its use of

cultural appropriation.

Figure 18. Edelson, Mary Beth. 1972. Red Kali from Women/Rising Spirit. Image. Accessed June 17, 2017.

http://www.nyartbeat.com/media/event/2017/2783-620. .

Kali is a logical feminist candidate, as she “represents alternative constructions of femininity

and motherhood” (Dalmiya 2000, 125-150). However, renditions of Kali, a goddess who is

said to have skin as dark as midnight, as depicted by Western culture often disregard her

story and message in lieu of their own. Traditional depictions of Kali are illustrated, carved

and cast from bronze with her standing on the body of Shiva, her confidant who placed

himself, at his own free will, under her feet to calm her, following her victorious defeat after


battle (Harding 1993, 49). In this position Kali has just defeated demons that invaded the

heavens by severing their limbs from their bodies and drinking their blood from her

ceremonial bowl (Harding 1993, 49). She celebrated her triumph by dancing, however her

dancing shook and began to break the heavens she has fought to protect (Harding 1993, 49).

Other deities realised the destruction and called on Shiva to help. As the Lord of Dance,

Shiva was enjoying Kali’s dancing and wanted her to rejoice in her victory, so Shiva left her

to dance. But after some time, the destruction worsened, and began to tremble under the

god’s feet, so Shiva laid himself down in Kali’s path (Harding 1993, 50). Unaware, Kali

stepped on his chest, and having realised the damage she had done, poked her tongue out in

shock and embarrassment and stopped dancing. Shiva brings a serene smile to his face, proud

of Kali and relieved the destruction has ceased. Henceforth depictions of this tale always

portray Kali stepping on Shiva’s chest, and in their stillness the two represent the power of

nature (Kali) over humanity (Shiva) (Harding 1993, 50).

For Edelson, the dark Devi Kali represents a feminist symbol, who is silencing the patriarchy

by literally standing on its mouth. As Donald Kuspit wrote, “I think of Mary Beth Edelson as

a priestess looking for a goddess to worship, and confusing this goddess with herself” (Kuspit

1983). Here Edelson projects her own beliefs onto a culture that is not her own, and turns

Kali into a figure that is self-referential rather than allowing Kali to be an inspiring figure of

her own. It can also alienate and Other Indian women from their own culture, as Rachel Fell

McDermott states in the book Devi: The Goddesses of India (1996), these Western

interpretations of Kali creates “a close identification between women and goddesses [that]

may lead to dehumanisation… especially [of] Indian women” (McDermott 1996, 281-313).

While Edelson’s series Women/Rising Spirit (1973) appropriated idyllic goddess figures from

popular culture, mythology and religion, the photograph With Spirit from the series Calling

the Spirit (1974), approaches the image of the goddess unreservedly and without ascribed

ideas of what a goddess should look like or represent. In With Spirit (1974), Edelson is

photographed outside in nature, naked, with body paint used to decorate her figure. She has

stated that documenting these private performance rituals outdoors, in the solitude of nature

existed “to create a state of trance and susceptibility” (Edelson, 2014). Her stance is strong,

with arms and hands spread out in ceremonial worship. The backdrop is a white sandy beach

with luscious shrubbery in the distance. Residues from her last series Women/Rising Spirit

(1973) resonate into this work, as concentric circles are again painted on her stomach and

nipples, and a third eye painted on her forehead, which transfigures her into a primordial

Goddess archetype. Edelson’s unpolished patterns and markings emit kinetic lines from the

picture of herself, creating a type of headpiece and warrior necklace that also doubles as a

glowing halo.

Figure 19. Edelson, Mary Beth, 1974. With Spirit from Calling the Sprit Series. Image. Accessed June 17, 2017.

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/wp-content/uploads/SarahG/marybeth2.jpg.

The documented residue captures Edelson’s confidence and embodied energy, which is

emphasised through these radiating patterns. Unlike Red Kali, this work is personal; its

composition is cropped and intimate, and at the same time divine. It is a divinity of Edelson,


her own deity come to life, rather than someone else’s. As Donald Kuspit said, “The Goddess

has taken over Edelson’s being, and thereby recovered Her own Being” (Kuspit 1983).

The appropriation seen in Red Kali (1973) led me to realise that artists should only create art

from their own narrative, heritage and voice. As speaking for another’s culture, or experience

can trivialise, disconnect and minimise the practices and beliefs of marginalised cultures.

While Red Kali (1973) accentuated colonialist views on South-Eastern spirituality, religion

and philosophy as mystic, Edelson’s later work With Spirit (1974) summoned the Archetypal

Goddess, and personified her energy while surpassing any presumptions of who can be a

Goddess. By capturing these ritualised performances in still photographs and depicting

herself as a primordial goddess archetype, the work represents a powerful contrast to the

depiction of women in patriarchal society. Edelson contributes to my practice research

through this new feminist aesthetic by embracing her own identity as worthy enough to align

with the Goddess figure. Here my practice and Edelson’s intersect, as I do not aim to turn

myself into any specific witch figure, but to instead conjure and embody what the witch

represents in my art practice, and to me, metaphorically, culturally, historically and

spiritually through a feminist lens.

Janine Antoni, Ana Mendieta and Mary-Beth Edelson’s performances help establish how live

performance can birth new works in their aftermath. These documented residues prolong and

outlive the live performance’s original arrangement in the form of photographic

documentation, ink stained floors, hollowed out earth, and bodily imprints, and like a

talisman, continue to carry the energy and metaphysical body of the artist.

3.4 Feminine Alterity

As previously discussed in Mary Beth Edelson’s work Red Kali (1973), coloured and queered

bodies have long been objects of superstitions, accusations and violence. The conscious

proliferating art practices from queer and culturally diverse artists will be examined in this

section in order to negotiate wider questions on alterity and self-expression. The works of

Muslim artist Qasim Riza Shaheen, American artist Catherine Opie, South-Asian artist

Baseera Khan, and collaborative South American/ American duo Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo

and Andrew Mroczek represent artists who employ defiant strategies of self-representation

and portraiture to challenge Otherness and explore sexuality, gender, culture and religion.

Each artist speaks from a place of personal narrative and experience. These artists

acknowledge that challenging socially constructed ideas of femininity, sexuality, gender and

culture are strategic manoeuvres developed to overcome cultural normative hierarchies and

their limitations in order to create a new language in art based on intersectional feminism.

3.4.1 Catherine Opie

Catherine Opie’s works Self-Portrait/ Pervert (1994) and Self-Portrait/ Nursing (2004) share

a queer reworking of the concepts of feminine discourse. The continual development of

intersectional feminism’s approach to the ‘feminine’ modifies societies’ ideologies and offers

positive alternative images of what liberated feminine qualities may look like.

In ‘Self-portrait/ Pervert’ (1994) Opie uses controlled composition, regal poses and lush

studio backdrops to resist simplistic voyeurism and categorisations of the fetish, queer and

body modification procedures in her work. Opie photographs herself seated in front of heavy

large royal black and gold ornate drapes. The chiaroscuro lighting forces shadow contours to

develop around her clavicles, breasts and arms, resembling the intense depth of an oil

painting. The same floral pattern of the drapes has been carved into the artist’s chest, as an

ornamental underscoring of the word ‘pervert’ in gothic typography; also carved into the skin

using the method of scarification. The measured noble pose of her straight-backed posture

and her neatly clasped hands resting in her lap are punctured with orderly rows of needles.

Her face is covered in a leather black gimp mask; straps and buckles cover her features. The

employment of traditional portraiture techniques teamed with fetish kink culture motifs hints

at a celebration of sexual subculture (Saketopoulou 2013, 245); and presents a socially

inclusive representation, rather than positioning the subculture as a ‘toxic Other’. Opie

identities this work as her ‘Henry VIII portrait’, referencing the historical monarch’s lavish,

self-propagandist oil painting (Yablonsky 2008). Henry VIII [fig 5] is posed as a majestic

warrior embellished with jewels and necklaces to highlight his opulence, sharing consistent

themes with Opie in her work ‘Pervert/ Self-Portrait’ (1994).

Figure 20. Opie, Catherine. 1994. Self-Portrait/Pervert. Image. Accessed October 11, 2016.

https://i0.wp.com/www.guggenheim.org/wp-content/uploads/1994/01/2003.68_ph_web-1.jpg?w=870. .


A decade later Opie’s ‘Nursing/ Self-Portrait’ (2004) was completed. Her work represents a

history within her own living, breathing and changing body. Her wounded carved chest

healed into scars and the inscription ‘pervert’ is no longer bloody but linguistically intact.

Similar to her 1994 portrait, Opie is once again seated in front of large heavy ornate drapes;

this time red and gold. The shadows now lit, simulate a subtle ethereal light moving across

her body. Her face is unveiled, and she is looking down to her breast where her baby son

suckles. The fetish kink culture celebrated in her first portrait still seeps through in the scars

that rest over her son’s head, intertwined and overlapping with maternal feminine notions

(Walker 2006). Themes of motherhood and the body as well as the traditional structure of

viewing the female body within art history are explored within the image. Her pose is not

only reminiscent of the Virgin Mary but transgresses beyond it. Opie artfully addresses

herself as a literal incarnation of the Virgin Mary – as a gay woman her pregnancy occurred

through artificial insemination rather than sexual intercourse (Hurtado 2011, 7). Opie’s

photographic piece escapes the visual model of the feminine imposed on women by

patriarchal fetishism and employs a reworked version based on the artist’s own history. These

themes of a virgin mother fantasy are also explored in Julia Kristeva’s book Black Sun:

Depression and Melancholia. In it Kristeva discusses the appeal of feminine immorality and

of motherhood without the presence of a father. The act of bonding with a child in lieu of a

husband, or maternal mothering without enacting the ‘phallic mother phobia’ generates a

childhood and motherhood without male influence (Kristeva 1989, 79) and mirrors Opie’s

own experience.

When viewed together, Pervert/Self-Portrait (1994) and Nursing/Self-Portrait (2004) weave

in and out of each other, much like Iris Marion Young’s proposal to consider women as a

multifaceted, overlapping series (Young 1994, 713). Opie’s oeuvre escapes the visual model

of the feminine imposed on women by patriarchal fetishism and employs a reworked version

of femineity based on the artist’s own history and beyond a single biological one.

Figure 21. Opie, Catherine. 2004. Self-Portrait/Nursing. Image. Accessed October 11, 2016.

https://i0.wp.com/www.guggenheim.org/wp-content/uploads/2004/01/2005.14_web-1.jpg?w=870.


3.4.2 Qasim Riza Shaheen

Qasim Riza Shaheen’s practice highlights the diversity of ‘feminisms’ and much like the

avant-garde Hungarian-Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil, explores duality and transverses

culture as a queer British-Muslim artist. As a male artist dealing with feminine motifs he

invites individuals to reconsider femininity without conjuring ideas of essentialism, making

its associated attributes and behaviours such as delicate, pure and soft available to both

women and men. This work broadened my preconceived notions on feminine aesthetics and

allows me to negotiate much wider questions of culture, gender, the body, and sexuality.

Figure 22. Shaheen, Qasim Riza. (2007) In a world where there are five women I am the seventh. Image.

Accessed September 2, 2016. https://www.artfund.org/gallery/740x500/assets/what-we-do/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/2009/gallery-oldham/2009176_1_C.jpg.


Shaheen’s delicate mixed media sculpture In a world where there a five women I am the

seventh (2007) consists of five hand crafted innocent and childlike dolls. Four of the dolls are

adorned in decadent silk, coloured red, pale peach and gold, sari dresses. Each is embellished

with golden jewellery and have red mehndi symbols painted on their hands, which represents

traditional Punjabi bridal attire. The fifth doll is pared back, showing the original stitching

and grey cotton fabric of what lies beneath each of the dressed dolls, naked in comparison to

the rest.

Each gently formed facial feature of the doll is replicated identically with dark perfectly

shaped eyebrows, big lustrous eyes, red rosy cheeks, matching plump lips, and a blackened

full beard. Each doll is replicated in the vein of the artist. On the surface level this work

comments on the construction of the ‘mythical bride ‘proposed by Betty Friedan in her book

‘The Feminine Mystique’ in addition to ritual practices and gender social constructions

(Friedan 2001, 79). The use of the bare, undressed doll suggests that the clothing is still a

construct of gender, and when those clothes are removed all that is left are stitches and cotton

stuffed breasts. Conversely the use of feminine bridal motifs work as outward signifiers of an

excess of devotion, reverence, love and longing as well as tradition (Kabir 2007, 84), and

move ultimately towards a transcendent gender representation. Here Shaheen’s dolls reflect

on the male image outside of binary codes, signifying men as beautiful delicate and pure,

akin to ‘untainted’ brides. When asked about the title of the work ‘In a world where there a

five women I am the seventh’ Shaheen explained that:

As an artist I assign myself the role of the seventh as a mediator between the five

[dolls] that exist and the sixth that is unacknowledged, marginalised and subjugated…

The educator that enlightens the rest of the clan with her/his differences – magical yet

silenced, fragrant yet invisible (Qasim Riza Saheen 2014).

This sixth ‘unacknowledged’ doll suggests the Other. As the transgendered dolls are the

majority the sixth unseen is still bound to binary miscalculations, perhaps a version of the

artist that is still repressed.

.

Figure 22.1 Shaheen, Qasim Riza. (2007) In a world where there are five women I am the seventh. Detail image. Accessed September 2, 2016. https://www.artfund.org/gallery/740x500/assets/what-we-do/art-weve-helped-

buy/artwork/2009/gallery-oldham/2009176_2_C.jpg.

The use of this symbolism portrays a reflection of the male outside of masculine codes,

which signifies men as beautiful, delicate and pure, akin to ‘untainted’ brides. The work

alludes to a longing for a new type of femininity, one that is inclusive to both women and

men. Hindu God Arthanareeswarar emulates both male and female in a state of singularity;

both father and mother, fearsome and gentle, destructive and fruitful (Kinsley 1998, 49).

Leitmotifs emphasised in Shaheen’s sculptures unify these universal dichotomies. By

exploring a polymorphous gender identity, the work begins to unveil layers of religious

connotations, traditions and cultures.

3.4.3 Baseera Khan

Baseera Khan, an emerging queer femme South Asian American artist, investigates identity,

spirituality and culture through performance, sculpture and installation works. As a person of

colour residing in America, her works negotiate subjects on Otherness, self-representation

and self-censorship.


Braidrage (2017) speaks of self-representation, and consists of an in-door climbing rock wall

cast from 99 unique resin casts taken from angles and bends of the artist's body (Kahn

2017). Knees, shoulder blades, elbows and ankle joints cover the wall. Preserved in each

resin casting are gold chains, black braided hair and hypothermia blankets. The climbing

ropes are made to resemble the artist’s long braids of black hair and are also intertwined with

gold chains. These motifs disembody the artist’s form into fragmented codes, symbols and

emblems. She performs by scaling the wall, a metaphor for circumnavigating the white art

world as a South Asian woman. She speaks about these tensions by stating, “The way that I

choose my materials, my silhouettes, my voice, the position, the locale, is always in paranoia

of these structural systems set up to define who you are as either an honourable or

dishonourable body” (Burke 2018).

Kahn enters the gallery in black leggings, a black t-shirt, and a climbing harness that grips to

her waist and thighs. She carries a white bowl filled with black chalk, which she places on the

floor and then kneels before. She begins washing herself with the black powdered chalk.

Bowing, she dips her hands into the bowl, cooperating and relating to the chalk as if it were

water. Curling her hands, she scoops pools of chalk into the cavities of her palms, and rinses

the chalk over her face, neck, arms, back, legs and feet; the chalk stains and bathes her skin

black. She pools more handfuls of chalk over her hair and strokes it down her long braid. Once she is finished bathing in black chalk, she stands upright, and moves towards the rock

wall behind her. Particles of black soot fall from her body, and each step she takes towards

the wall leaves a black stain on the gallery floor. In front of the rock wall hangs ropes and

long braids of black hair. Kahn loops a rope through her harness’ carabineer, and uses the

braids of black hair as support to hold her body weight as she clutches her feet and hands to

the bodily protrusions on the wall. Kahn ascends the white gallery wall, stopping slowly at

different ends of the wall, relying on the abstracted shapes of her cast body to hold her up.

She pauses and suspends herself between disembodied forms, elongating and sweeping her

arms and feet along the white wall, purposefully and ritually leaving black stained marks in

her place.

Figure 23. Khan, Baseera. 2017. Braidrage. Image. Accessed December 3, 2017. http://participantinc.org/content/2-seasons/3-season-15/4-iammuslima/khan-performance4.jpg.


Similar to Janine Antoni’s work Loving Care (1993) Kahn’s performance Braidrage alters

the gallery space by staining and desecrating it. But rather than commenting on the gallery

space as a male dominated institution, Kahn goes further by critiquing the white cube gallery

as an institution of whiteness. By scaling the gallery wall, Kahn disorientates the white

gallery space. The presence of her body as a woman of colour, ascending the gallery wall,

while cast parts of her own body lift her up, challenges white dominance. Philosopher Sarah

Ahmed suggests that “whiteness” functions as a “habit” that inhabits institutions and social

behaviours, and produces and maintains its authority and control by having its privilege

accepted as routine, while also taking this privilege for granted. As Ahmed proposes:

“Whiteness is what bodies do, where the body takes shape of the action…. spaces are

oriented ‘around’ whiteness, insofar as whiteness is not seen” (Ahmed 2007, 157). Walls are

often overlooked, and function as barriers that enclose and divide property, but here the wall

is made visible, by the marks and stains left by Kahn’s body. The black stains behave like

spotlights, bringing attention to the white institutions and social behaviours that are unnoticed

and taken for granted.

Figure 23.1 Khan, Baseera. 2017. Braidrage. Image. Accessed December 3, 2017.

http://participantinc.org/content/2-seasons/3-season-15/4-iammuslima/khan_wall_v01.jpg.


Acoustic Sound Blankets (2017) made of silk, felt, industrial sound insulation and gold

custom embroidery, also experiments with perceptions of self-representation, but instead

of visibility speaks of self-censorship. Kahn adorned her sound suits during America’s

2017 Women’s March in New York that was held in opposition to the Trump

Administration. While women marched and protested freely and visible, Kahn’s sound

suit hid her body from view. The blanket acted as a full-length black cloak that draped

over Kahn’s entire body. An embroidered golden arabesque trim sat neatly around a

single round opening at the top of the cloak. Through this opening Kahn would

sporadically offer her hand to strangers in the crowd. Khan speaks about this act of

shrouding as anti-representation, proclaiming “how do you make assumptions when you

cannot see an individual?” (Burke 2018). Khan’s Acoustic Sound Blankets created

opportunities for connection with other protestors that were based on touch and trust, rather

than assessments based on bodies and their shapes, the colours of skin or the tone and accent

in a voice.

Figure 24. Khan, Baseera. 2017. Acoustic Sound Blankets. Image. Accessed December 5, 2017.

https://www.baseerakhanstudios.com/acoustic-blanket-sound-suit/.


Figure 24.1. Khan, Baseera. 2017. Acoustic Sound Blankets. Image. Accessed December 5, 2017.

https://www.baseerakhanstudios.com/acoustic-blanket-sound-suit/.


I relate closely to Khan’s approach to making, and her practice. She states that, “Our bodies

are subject to volatile social environments…Volatility creates a need for self-censorship

and secrecies among people who are Othered and prone to surveillance” (Burke 2018). I

have used the witch as a way of self-censorship, allowing me to reveal particular

personal things, and keep others for myself. I use the witch as a mask to shield my

coloured body, South-Asian culture, spirituality and queer femme identity as I too

navigate the terrain of the white art world.

3.4.4 Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek

Similar to the works of Catherine Opie, South American artist Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo and

his American collaborator Andrew Mroczek have been creating portraits and tableaux since

2013. The intentions of the works are to “…embed a sense of pride within the current and

future generations of Peru’s LGBTQ community” (Barboza-Gubo and Mroczek n.d.). Their

series Virgenes de la Puerta (2014-2018) that translates to "Virgins of the Door" in Spanish

is provoking, empowering and challenging. The images call attention to the LGBTQIA+

population in Peru who are victims of state and civilian violence by depicting transgender

women as religious spiritual idols.

For over 500 years the transgender women of Lima, Peru have been outcast by their

communities, government policies and religious organisations. On their website Barboza-

Gubo and Mroczek state that they were inspired to create this photographic series as they

learnt about the plight of transgender women in Lima:

They are consistently denied employment, assistance from government programs,

both state and government-issued forms of identification, and are granted limited

access to basic medical resources. They live burdened under the hostile atmosphere

created by the agenda of the Church and the politicians who rule the patriarchy with

antiquated concepts of masculinity and machismo (Barboza-Gubo and Mroczek

2017).

Barboza-Gubo grew up in Lima, Peru and witnessed the violence transgender women face in

the region first hand. At approximately seven years old he witnessed the violent public

beating of a transgender woman on the street, and speaks of the event stating, “I haven't been

able to forget or forgive: It was a senseless act of aggression” (Jansen 2018). As time passed

the event left a mark on him, however, as his collaborator Mroczek has said, “what left a

bigger impression on him [Barboza-Gubo] was that no one helped the woman at all”

(Manatakis 2018). Both artists developed this project as a way to curb the apathetic bystander

phenomenon that occurs during these acts of injustice and violence and as a way to give back

to the transgender community. Their series Virgenes de la Puerta (2014-2018) took four

years to develop and complete and includes photographs of seventeen transgender women

from Lima, Peru. Each photograph utilises traditional Catholic religious iconography to

immerse the transgender women into their country’s culture, spirituality and community. The

collaborative duo ornamented each staged photograph with potent cultural and religious

symbolism. Every sight, accessory and ensemble was meticulously prearranged in

illustrations that Barboza-Gubo would generate. They then employed the aid of local artisans

to handcraft silver, bronze and gold papal tiaras and halos, alongside hand-sewn silk veils and

skirts (Jansen 2018).

Every photograph is titled after the names of the transgender women that are featured in

them. The first photograph of the series, Maricielo I (2014), portrays Maricielo, a locally

renowned transgender activist and educator. She is framed in the centre of the photograph;

her body is angled to the left, and the image is cropped, emphasising her face, torso and arms.

She is naked, and her tan skin blends with the honey coloured tones of her hair as it runs

down her head, ribbons over her shoulders and finishes at her breasts. Behind her drapes a

large curtain, the colour of deep mauve which is patterned with silk embroidered leaves that

catch the light and change shade from mauve to maroon. The same warm light that alters the

curtain’s colour softly illuminates and shadows the contours of Maricielo’s body. Her portrait

is enchanting, and is elevated into the heavens with the glistening silver crown that sits upon

her head. The crown references the halos depicted in the colonial paintings from the 19th

century (Barboza-Gubo and Mroczek 2017). When placed on an individual, a halo suggests a

sacred figure, and represents an aura of purity, blessedness and sanctity. When talking about

their time with Maricielo, Mroczek said:

When we got back to the house and reviewed the digital images, we compared them

to the sketches that Juan had made and it was incredible. It was as though he has

been sketching her all along. That portrait and the crown that we had made, it was for

Maricielo long before we had even met her (Andrewland, 2015).

Figure 25. Barboza- Gubo, Juan and Andrew Mroczek. 2014. Maricielo. Image. Accessed August 25, 2017.

https://dazedimg-dazedgroup.netdna-ssl.com/491/azure/dazed-prod/1230/8/1238081.jpg


By incorporating Peruvian culture and religious iconography into this series, the photographs

celebrate, advocate and revere the strength, beauty and resilience of the transgender

community. The collaborative practice between Barboza-Gubo and Mroczek inspires my own

as Mroczek has interrogated his own culture, religion and government by offering the

transgender women who are persistently denied basic freedoms by these administrations,

confident and affirming reflections of themselves.

These practices develop dialogues that centre on social injustices, inequalities and the

persistent Othering of individuals by policy makers, religious groups and communities. By

engaging with the overlapping narratives of each of these artists, my goal has been to define

the intersectional and intersecting dialogues that occur in the representations and experiences

of gender, culture, and sexuality. Utilising performance, photography and sculpture these four

artists find themselves renegotiating what it is to defiantly identify as Other. I believe these

ways of self-describing and identifying will continue to develop rapidly as artists take up

existing interpretations and concepts of gender, sexuality and culture using contemporary art

practice. I look to these artists as I offer up my own identities to be reinterpreted alongside

the image of the witch so that I too can locate alterity as a symbol of emancipation within

creative practice.

The performance rituals by W.I.T.C.H, Yoko Ono, Mary Wigman and Jill Orr, the

documented residues of Janine Antoni, Mary Beth Edelson and Ana Mendieta and the themes

of feminine alterity in the works of Catherine Opie, Qasim Riza Shaheen, Baseera Kahn and

collaborative duo Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek are fundamental to my

practice research. Each of the artists and their accompanying practice inform the conceptual

approaches of my creative studio project. The assimilation of the witch into a feminist

metaphor sees the witch outside of its medieval history and instead as a figure that continues

to be relatable and rebellious, here the witch sits alongside artists that are unapologetically

political, femme, and Othered. This research critically elaborates on new understandings of

how alterity and the figure of the witch can be translated into contemporary intersectional

feminist art practice through my own ritualised strategies of gesture, object, voice and

residue.

IV

Ritual Methods: Intersectional Feminism and

Practice-led Research as Methodology

/

4.1 Introduction

This chapter outlines the methods and strategies through which the research was grounded in

order to unpack my creative and critical relationships with intersectional feminism and

practice-led research. It expands upon the intersectional frameworks used to explore my

subjective body in performance. This chapter also discusses the strategies of embodied ritual,

the image of the witch, and screaming as performative methods as well as the process of

writing as an alternative form of voicing.

4.2 Practice-led Research

This project, while in some ways symbolic when dealing with themes of ritual residues,

conjuring alterity through screaming, and re-activating the witch as a political ally, is

supported within the framework of practice-led research. Hazel Smith and Roger Dean refer

to this methodology as “the interconnections among visual forms, patterns of inquiry and

different perspectives (that) offer the possibility of making intuitive and intellectual leaps

towards the creation of new knowledge” (2009, 43). The exegesis makes these patterns of

enquiry evident by providing a chronological account of the historical, religious, sociological

and political standing of the figure of the witch using an intersectional feminist lens.

Complementary to this research were case studies on modern and contemporary feminist

artists, queer artists and artists of colour whose practices have also been framed through

intersectional feminist methodologies. The historical and contemporary research

contextualised within the practices of artists contributes to the creation of new knowledge

through practice-led research by critically elaborating on new understandings of how my own

embodied performance, ritual residue and alterity can be translated into contemporary

intersectional feminist art practice. Given that witches conjure up visual imagery through

history, fiction, and mythology it seems fitting that this exploration of the witch as a symbol

of alterity should be problematized and reconfigured within embodied performance practice,

as a way to create new understandings on how it can exist outside of these popular and

conventional frameworks.

In this process I explore the witch figure through bodily metaphors, superstitions and ritual.

By creating ritualistic works, I attempt to locate the otherwise ineffable and unobstructed

voice in order to create new versions of the witch figure alongside those that exist in the

conventional material form of fiction. By investigating the act of screaming as a physical

cathartic experience, alternative ways of self-actualising are articulated. In this way the witch

figure is proposed in my practice as a disruptive agent that threatens to overturn the

established order with qualities that have been characterised within this exegesis as Other.

4.3 Intersectional Feminism

Intersectionality was first used in the context of feminism in 1989 by law professor and civil-

rights activist, Kimberlé Crenshaw. Her critical paper Demarginalizing the Intersection of

Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory

and Antiracist Politics defined the “intersectional experience” as something “greater than the

sum of racism and sexism” (Crenshaw1989, 140). Crenshaw observed the way race and

gender within feminism have been isolated from each other, undermining women of colour,

whose bodies and experiences are discriminated and marginalised. She states that, “the

failure of feminism to interrogate race means that the resistance strategies of feminism will

often replicate and reinforce the subordination of people of colour” (Crenshaw, 1991, 1252).

As a feminist approach, intersectionality realises that while all women conceivably

experience oppression based on their gender, each of their lived experiences do not amount to

a universal or an all-encompassing ‘female experience’. Instead it recognises that there are

varying degrees and intensities on how women experience discrimination based on race,

class, age, sexual preference, physical ability and/or global location (Crenshaw 1989, 151).

As an analytic framework and methodology within this practice-led research, intersectional

feminism facilitated the consideration of my research. For example, my research on the

historical image of the witch takes into consideration its popularised reclamation, but argues

that this reclamation is complicated by race, class and privilege. While the image of the witch

has been reclaimed in the West, reports of witch hunts in Gambia, India, Nepal, Papua New

Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania and Uganda persist, as women continue to be killed for

accusations of witchcraft. An intersectional approach is also applied to the case study on

feminine alterity, which analysed the artistic practices of queer artists and artists of colour

who portrayed their own culture, and experiences of difference within their distinct practices.

I also apply an intersectional feminist methodology to the practical component of this project

by examining how my experiences as a visibly brown female body are understood in

performance practice. The body in performance becomes politicised by outward or

unconscious associations with gender, sex, race and class. My creative practice is interested

in how a body can emphasis these superficial markers, and at the same time dislocate and

unhinge these cultural implications. Using embodied performance framed by an intersectional

feminist methodology allows me to speak from my place in the world, with my history and

voice.

By using an intersectional feminist framework, my practice focuses on self-representation as

a method of decolonisation. As Bell Hooks suggests, “colonialism means that we must

always rethink everything. Challenged to rethink, insurgent black intellectuals and/or artists

are looking at new ways to write and talk about race and representation, working to transform

the image” (Hooks 1992, 2). By placing my body within my practice, I respond and disrupt

the racist and sexist representation of female identifying black and brown bodies whose

depictions within magazines, pornography, visual art, ethnographic imagery, television and

movies feed society’s “fascination with ethnic looks, with the exotic Other who promises to

fulfil racial and sexual stereotypes” (Hooks 1992, 73).

Female-identifying artists of colour counteract phallocentric portrayals that depict women as

a specific, homogeneous group. Within the realm of practice-led research framed by

intersectional feminism, subjectivity speaks of how art is regularly inspired by an artist’s

personal, emotional history and narrative (Barrett and Bolt 2007, 4). By placing my body in

performance, I infuse myself with the agency and subjectivity that has been denied by the

colonialist and patriarchal systems within our society. While discussing how performance art

confronts and deconstructs these social systems, Minakshi Kaushki investigates the way

female Indian performance artists are “escaping the limitations of behavioural codes, and

exploring the politics of identity” (Kaushik 2017, para 1). She states:

Women’s performance art in the West acquires theoretical basis and motivations

(consciously or unconsciously) from rewritings of Lacanian conceptualization of

subjectivity and desire as inherently male by feminists…In India, patriarchal

discourse is somewhat differently generated. Here, a religious discourse operates

around the construction of women’s identities. A woman is associated with

spirituality and is reified as sacred. On the other end of the spectrum, a sexualized

image of the woman is formulated and is condemned as demon-like. (Kaushik 2017,

para 5).

While my practice is not physically located in India, my body represents a brown female

Indian body. I have physically brought my body into my work in order to explore the image

of the witch from my own subjective position, and in doing so, I have been concerned with

how I would be categorised; as sacred and spiritual, sexual and impure, or as most Western

societies deem people of colour, primitive. In Western discourses, black and brown bodies

have been and continue to be exhaustedly associated with ‘primitive sexuality’, an

evolutionist notion linking blackness (“race”) with primitivity and sexual alterity or

‘otherness’ ” (Frohlick 2013, 147). As a woman of colour, adding to the sphere of

performance art has felt dangerous and violating; it positions my body within states of

vulnerability and situates the body as an object to be critiqued and criticised. However, as

Estelle Barrett & Barbara Bolt suggest, “the innovate dimension of this subjective approach

to research lies in its capacity to bring into view, particularities that reflect new social and

other realities either marginalised or not yet recognised in established social practices and

discourses” (Barrett and Bolt 2007, 4). As a queer femme, first generation Anglo-Indian

artist my goal is to bring forth a narrative that has been widely ostracised in the dominant

Western discourse. Using intersectional feminism as a methodological strategy this research

re-defines and generates new creative strategies around race, gender and sexuality, framed by

the figure of the witch, demonstrating that past debates on essentialism are

counterproductive. I have attempted to negate these layers of discrimination and

marginalisation within my performances through the process of embodiment.

4.4 Embodied Performance and Ritual

French theatre director and practitioner Jacques Copeau describes embodied performance as

an “internal state of awareness peculiar to the movement being done” (Cole and Chinoy

1970, 220). Within my practice I additionally focus on an internal awareness of my breath

and voice. Embodied performance also speaks of subjectivity; by blurring the separation

between internal and external, skin and heart, body and mind, I, as the artist am able to draw

upon my own specific individuality; presenting my racially and gender defined body for

reinterpretation. Inside this space, “the performance frame is contingent and temporary,

holding the performer in a liminal, provisional and suspended place. This frame of

performance time is a particular construct the artist or performer steps into” (Kaushik 2017,

para 3). In this liminal space, that knows no boundaries, space or time, embodied

performance promotes an exploration of politics and representation outside of normative

standards and singular identities.

Through this research project I argue that the heteroglossic nature of intersectional feminism

within contemporary art suggests that feminism and femininity are beyond a singular racial

and gendered identity, which assists in embracing the figure of the witch alongside my own

cultural heritage and in turn inverts the dichotomy of magic and race as crude and primitive.

As Coco Fusco suggests in her book English is Broken Here (1995), we have to avoid

classifying artists of colour that locate racial difference in their practice as ‘primitive’ and

work towards understanding our own racially biased assumptions, in order to support an

artist’s right to exploration (1995, 6).

As an Anglo-Indian woman, while it may seem reasonable to embrace the magic traditions of

my heritage amid investigation of the witch figure, I am cautious of the ways I appropriate

traditions and symbols from my Indian heritage. I recognise that it is a privilege to investigate

the image of the witch within my creative practice as an Indian woman, and therefore avoid

performing imitations of sacred ritual traditions from my culture for predominately white

audiences, as I believe that doing so would be disrespectful to the women in my culture that

have been executed or live in fear of being accused of witchcraft, and would also situate my

culture and similar traditions, once again, as primitive, exotic, mystical and Other. My

position on appropriating symbolism and traditions from my own culture continues to be

processed and amended with the help of intersectional feminism, as it provides an important

tool to consider these implications and further strategies that could be utilised as a way to

repossess my heritage outside of exoticised perceptions. Through my embodied

performances, I have aimed to create my own rituals, ceremonies and sacraments that still

encourage a connection to culture and heritage without being superfluous, insincere or

voyeuristic. Likewise, the witch within creative practice has been approached as a channel to

move through, rather than a trope to appropriate. The symbolism of the witch when

connected to embodied performance creates a healing space for power, that calls upon the

history of individuals that have worked against the agreed upon order, and that seek self-

sovereignty.

Much like embodied performance, ritual has a transformative healing quality. In Janet

Jacobs’ report, The Effects of Ritual Healing on Female Victims of Abuse (1989), she finds

that “women-centered rituals are effective in reducing fear, releasing anger, increasing one’s

sense of power, and improving the overall mental health of those who have experienced

trauma of victimisation” (1989, 265). When investigating the image of the witch and the

female scream I have used a person-centred approach to ritual as a process for empowerment

and as means for cathartic expression. Within therapeutic frameworks, the key principles of

person-centred counselling include a non-authoritative approach, where the client is guided

through a therapeutic practice that focuses on their individual principles, ideals and

perspectives without disruption or intrusion in the process of self-actualisation (Rogers 2000,

99, 106). My person-centred approach calls for me to be in the centre of the ritual as the focal

point and also as a way to establish and ground myself within the work. It is geared towards

making decisions and actions based on my individual intentions and desires of what I want

from the performance; such as emotional-healing, visibility, catharsis and self-actualisation.

The three movements involved in a ritual sequence are gesture, object, and voice (Myerhoff

1997, 75). Ritual gestures typically relate to a meaningful movement that uses the body as a

framing device, such as a procession or dance (Farnell 2006, 92). These gestures can also

manipulate and activate the second ritual sequence in my practice; object. Particular objects

transmute into sacramental symbols when they are animated through gesture, an example of

this is the bread and the wine used during Catholic communion (Bell 2009, 71), or within my

practice when I light candles or chime bells. Lastly, and most importantly, is voice, as rituals

are intrinsically voice activated; reciting verses, particular languages, and procedures out loud

help give context, emotion and significance to the ritual (Berthomé and Houseman 2010, 60).

Within my practice, breathing and screaming are the primary sounds activated by voice.

Meditative breathing grounds my body within the performance, while screaming acts as

catharsis. As Annie Neligan proclaims, “[if] our eyes are the windows to our souls…our

voices [are] our source of power” (Neligan 2000, 114). Through screaming, I use voice as a

magical tool to align myself with the figure of the witch in order to defy the systemic colonial

and patriarchal oppressions against female bodies of colour, and to claim anger as a

legitimate response. This causes a reversal in the way I view the witch and myself, from the

hunted to the hunting, from the disempowered to the empowered.

Voices of women have a long history of being supressed and unacknowledged. As Kristine

Linklater identifies:

Men live in a reliable ‘sound-house’. Men hear their voices reverberating into and

back from their community and the body politic, confirming the validity of their

thoughts, words and emotions. ‘I speak, I am heard, therefore I am’ offers at least a

skeletal sense of identity. If a culture could be thought to have vocal cords, those of

our society would vibrate with male frequencies; the base notes of the patriarchy

provide a fundamental pitch or tone around which the frequencies of the female voice

are heard as overtones and undertones. The cultural sound-house is patriarchal

(Linklater 2000, 28).

One of the few representations of an untamed marginal figure that has ownership of their

voice is the witch. The defying joyful cackle, their collected ceremonial chants, and the howls

unleashed as they take flight in moonlight, are all sounds that are conceived in the mouth of

the witch, and echo into historical and current depictions. French feminist author Xavière

Gauthier argues the importance of the witch’s voice in an introduction of a literary review

that explored women’s rebellious non-conformist creativity, titled Porquoi Sorcières, which

translates to Why Witches:

Why witches? Because witches sing. Can I hear this singing? It is the sound of

another voice. They tried to make us believe that women did not know how to speak

or write; that they were stutterers or mutes. That is because they tried to make women

speak straightforwardly, logically, geometrically, in strict conformity. In reality, they

croon lullabies, they howl, they gasp, they babble, they shout, they sigh (Goldenberg

2004, 203).

The creative research and practice methods in this project are concerned with merging the

witch’s voice with my own as a way to unleash its dissentient, transgressive expression in art.

I aimed to add a piercing, domineering scream to the list of sounds associated with the witch,

a scream that demands to be heard.

Similar to witchcraft, the scream is an act of violence. As written about by Jo Pearson in her

article Resisting Rhetorics of Violence: Women, Witches and Wicca, current witchcraft

focuses on combating patriarchal violence, the violence of silence with invisible violence

through magical tactics such as ill-wishing, cursing or hexing (2010, 141). In my practice, the

female scream in ritualised performance functions in the same way. Historically the witch has

been a victim of violence, identifying with the witch today is a reaction against this violence,

an act of resistance to the patriarchal sound-house and its silencing of women. As Kristin

Linklater states, “Women must exercise their emotions in anger, grief, and even hate as

legitimate and manageable members of our emotional universe” (2000, 30). The scream

arrived as uncontrollable anger at the beginning of this project, it was a scream that stung and

stuck to the sides of my throat. As this project has progressed, I have taken private meditation

breathing classes to locate a stronger scream over which I have more control. Using precise

meditative breathing I have learnt to loosen my chest and throat and locate the scream in the

depths of my stomach. The breath functions to focus my power, and the scream voices the

energy held within it. Here the scream, situated within ritual embodied performance,

convinces myself of my own power – my own self-determination.

Ritual in performance as written about by Deborah Ultan, “establishes a reverence from

which they [artists] not only achieve a reclaiming of identity on a personal level but also

challenge any fixed perception of identity and its relationship to a single culture or

nationality” (Ultan 2001, 36). As an art making process tied to embodied performance, the

ritualised performances and the resulting aftermath emerge simultaneously alongside and in

conversation with the theoretical research of alterity, intersectional feminism, the scream, my

Anglo-Indian cultural heritage and the image of the witch. This way of working allows one

idea to feed into the next and acknowledges the vital relationship between my theoretical

research and my creative practice research.

Using embodied ritual performance as a creative strategy, I intensely consider the materials

involved, and their interpretation and presentation in the work. Embodied performance

symbolises a subjective body in action, rather than the “conclusion of an action” and is

defined as a cultural method, which “sets out to engender new interpretative approaches and

contexts for cultural phenomena and process” (Peters 2015, 225). Here embodied

performance implements particular methods from my own identity and applies “temporal

structures and rhythm, on the production of a situation using a certain spatial setup” (Peters

2015, 229). During the development of my embodied rituals I study the materials such as

soil, glass mirrors, salt and candles and their ritual and cultural significance. I interact with

them by using ritual methods in order to dislocate simple allegories and interpretations. My

research and embodied knowledge is established and applied in practice, and is consciously

resolved in the way I engage with materials, my body and voice during a performance. I

develop carefully considered rituals that can be adapted to each space they sit within, while

subtly revealing the ideas and emotions that motivated their development and application. In

this way, no iteration of a ritual is alike, but rather is made up of a set of elements that change

in material, shape, size, weight, light, reflections and sound. These are revealed in my score

for Ritual Embodiment:

I. Circular element

E.g. round vessels, bells, and circles

II. Reflective surface

E.g. water, metal, mirrors

III. Voice

E.g. breathe, scream, text

IV. Vedas Element

E.g. earth, water, fire, wind

V. Amplification/ manipulation

E.g. speakers, microphone, effect pedals, looping pedals

VI. Percussion

E.g. metal, cymbals, chains, hands, bells, repetition

The magic is in the handling of these materials using embodied performance, and ritual.

Embodied performance as a strategy within an intersectional feminist methodology, offers a

clear link between my subjective experiences. In this way the score is body-oriented3; it is

reliant on my body’s ability to activate each material element, and my breath and scream to

activate the sound element. The sounds I create are impulsive, erratic and unpredictable,

partly because I leave space in the rituals for improvisation and partly because of the nature

of the sound equipment. Moreover, I do not allow myself to become overly familiar with the

technical side of the effect pedals and looping pedals, in order for each performance to

fluctuate, alter and remain unpredictable.

3 The term body-orientated relates to body-orientated psychotherapy that recognises “the connection between body and mind and the underlying premise that our relationship to ourselves, others and the world is not only rooted in our mind and thoughts but also in our bodies”. Atefi-Bloch, Alexandra and Julie Smith. 2014. “The effectiveness of body-oriented psychotherapy: A Review of the Literature.” Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia http://pacja.org.au/?p=2552.

As a way to maintain the charge of the rituals in their aftermath, I conceived a fourth ritual

element to supplement the three ritual movements of gesture, object and voice by adding

residue. While the nature of performance and ritual is fleeting and ephemeral, residue as a

ritual method evolves from the embodied performances and leaves behind soil stained floors,

melted candles and sound recordings of the performances as evidence of ritual action.

My performed ceremonies have become a ritual of separation and of inseparability. I have

come to recognise that self-fulfilment and empowerment are at the core of ritualised magic,

particularly in contemporary society when individuals are searching for spiritual liberation

from reactionary views on sexuality, gender and race. Identifying with the image of the witch

is about reclaiming the term and successively embracing the mysticism behind it in order to

fight entrenched systemic oppression. My process has become a cross fertilisation of

researching and making. Each process I have worked through is a ritual in itself. There is

purpose in every note that leaves the mouth, every extension of the body, and every resulting

ringing vibration.

I have aimed to develop a body of work that is visceral, primal, and ritualised; a space that

encourages me to give birth to my own breath. Uniting embodied performance and ritual

together, solidifies and crystallises my creative practice as a site to explore the relationships

between the female scream, the figure of the witch and the creative strategies of ritual as a

subversive, powerful act that may have not been available to other modes of enquiry but

framed within an intersectional feminist methodology and practice-led research are made

possible.

4.5 Voicing Through Writing

My project is double voiced; it is a call and response between writing and practice. The

research exegesis is a reflection of the practice-led research process. It involves establishing

and expanding my practice methods and linking them to conventional methodologies of

practice-led research. Understanding my practice is reliant on the relationship I conjure

between process and writing, based on my own self-reflective charting of the works as they

emerge. The interchange between the creative practice, research and reflections are

fundamental in communicating and applying the outcomes of my embodied rituals framed

within an intersectional feminist methodology for future application.

The exegesis also functions “to generate a critical discourse on practice-led enquiry that

involves viewing the artist as a researcher, and the artist as a scholar who comments on the

value of the artistic process as the production of knowledge” (Barrett and Bolt 2007, 13). I

see these roles of researcher, scholar and artist as an extension of my performances, as way to

find my voice, and as a way to be heard/read. Much like the voiced sounds I produce within

my performances, my writing also contains emotion and expression, known as Phōné and

Logos. Phōné, as first written about by Aristotle, is commonly associated with sound or voice

while the Logos gives weight, emotion and expression to the Phōné (Elden, 2005, 287).

Voiced inside the exegesis the Logos presents a fundamental pitch to the Phōné, which

fluctuates and crescendos as another way to voice and embody myself within the project.

Here I use the body as an instrument to tell this story from beginning to end using Phōné and

Logos. Sahrdya, the Sanskrit term for “bridge of sound…that creates a rainbow of ‘rasa’ or

emotions and moods” (Naidu 2000, 159) forms a curved spectra of sound between myself as

the author and you, as the listener or reader.

While commenting on the history of the witch in Europe the rasa is low, like war drums

beating over distant hills, to the killing of women in India, which resonates like brass

cymbals shattering against each other. The text crescendos into a chorus of voices with the

reclamation of the terms such as ‘bitch’, ‘witch’ and ‘slut’, and gushes with chimes when

writing about the artists that continue to influence my practice, lastly it vibrates the sounds of

my performances, with the poetic lyricism I apply to my own creative practice and then drops

to one note during the conclusion – the kind of note that sits inside you, like tinnitus.

Often emotions are too large for a body, they swell and spill in unusual and unexpected ways,

but much like my screaming, writing is a way to share, unpack, and to tell my story. I speak

from a place of difference, and I write as a way to be understood. African-American author

Toi Derricotte wrote in her book The Black Notebook: An Interior Journey (1997), “coming

to one’s voice is… not a linear process, not a matter of learning skills, forms, and laws of

grammar and syntax. It is a dynamic process, in which much of what is occurring and has

occurred remains inside” (Derricotte 1997, 195). While this can be interpreted as how to

make one’s voice heard, she was commenting on the writer’s voice, and how to write one’s

voice into existence. Ysaye Barnwell describes this process as ‘giving birth to one’s soul’

through the “the ancestral, spiritual, cultural, social, political, and psychological influences

and processes that allow one’s true voice to emerge” (Barnwell 2000, 54-55). I view this

exegetical component as an extension of myself through the subjective knowledge I bring and

foreground this voice as ancestral within the framework of Barnwell’s definition. My

research interests in the figure of the witch, the female scream, ritual and embodied

performance have each been informed by my own personal experiences within the

framework of practice-led research and intersectional feminism. The transmission of

knowledge, history and ancestry are powerful, and finding my voice amongst the pages of my

exegesis is not simply about binding my creative practice with my writing in order for them

to be examined and interpreted together but as a way to locate my voice, and to accept it as

my own. The process of reflective writing in artistic research relates to ‘an alternative logic’

(Barrett and Bolt 2007, 4), one that seeks to understand the knowledge that emerges from

practice-led research. This alternative logic paves the way for alternative modes of not just

making and thinking, but also of being.

The practice-led and intersectional feminist methodological approaches employed in this

research project have supported me to responsively and critically engage with embodied

performance, ritual, and acts of voicing in narrative-based reflective writing. Consequently, I

have developed a voice that contributes to the field of intersectional feminist knowledge and

contemporary art practice by speaking from my own subjective and embodied position as a

femme Anglo-Indian artist.

V

Rituals of Body and Voice:

Reflections on the Scream and

Performance as Ritual

/

5.1 Introduction

Using the scream and the witch archetype as a symbol for liberation I aim to politicise and

reanimate past vilification with the apposing slander and embrace the witch in contemporary

societies. My self-conscious, anecdotal, reflective and poetic writing, presents a personal

exploration on how I navigate and reflect on the figure of the witch within my body and

voice. The writings and reflections within this chapter are as much about my own identity,

memory and the subjectivity of autobiographical truth, as they are narrations of the actual

content of the works and my experiences within them. I define this method as ‘Conjured Self-

Apparitions’. This process-driven approach relates to conjuring up and rethinking the

relationship between writing, sounding and performing. My reflective and poetic writing, oral

voice and breath, and my embodied performances are all apparitions of the self. By focusing

on the intentionality of each gesture I produce, I am interested in ‘casting’ a ritualised body

of work that is informed by ritual processes, and explore how they maintain this charge as

residue in my practice outcomes. In this way the performances exist beyond their execution

and function as rituals that activate the materials and sound. In the aftermath of the

performance the ritual elements such as soil, salt, wax and recorded sound operate as residue

for the duration of an exhibition.

5.2 Disembodied Practice and Self-Erasure

The conditions of my body, being female, of colour, and living as a minority in a society

governed by the majority has often felt so problematic that I yearned to drift as a

disembodied soul. I romanticised and idealised disembodiment within my art practice as an

act of unveiling and voicing myself into an eternal being.

How can I dissolve

and evaporate?

I wanted to produce a voice that had no point of origin; a veiled voice that would be actively

listened to and unconfined, thus capable of composing its own size, shape and weight in the

air it moved through. These freeform disembodied voices “whose source we cannot see” are

known as “acousmatic voices” (Dressler 2014, 213). The term “acousmatic” was derived

from the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras and his heuristic teaching pedagogy. As an

endeavour to distribute his message soundly and clearly to his students, he removed all

distracting visual stimuli and hid his body behind a curtain (Dressler 2014, 213). This method

produced a voice that was reduced to pure uncomplicated sound, where meaning and

intention was amplified and the act of listening became a conscious one.

5.2.1 Breath Hovering Beneath the Base

The first work I produced for this project envisioned an acousmatic voice possessed by the

archetypal symbol of the witch. At the beginning of 2016 Brisbane based artist-run initiative

CUT THUMB invited me to participate in a one-night event group show they were

organising in the back of a house in West End. I began developing a recording that would be

specifically composed for presentation using a speaker. I wanted to give every opportunity

for this acousmatic voice to become bodily and tangible in order to create an immaterial

sound that was heavy enough to penetrate a physical body. I envisioned myself as Dr

Frankenstein, my monster was a sound recording, and I wanted to animate her.

A thing without bones, without blood, but with breath floated in.

I began playing with infrasound; also known as low range frequencies to create a bodily

presence, a sound that would vibrate within the listener. The technical vernacular for how

infrasound functions is that it produces a sound lower in frequency than 20 hertz a second,

which is the average threshold of hearing in humans (Leventhall 2007, 131 - 137). The higher

the intensity of an infrasound, the more likely it is that it will be felt by the human body

(Leventhall 2007, 131 - 137). Although Infrasonics, the study of these soundwaves, is used

most commonly to monitor formations and abnormalities below the earth such as earthquakes

and rock formations, it is also used to investigate the relationship between low range

frequencies and ghost apparitions (Infrasound as a Possible Source of Sensations of the

Paranormal 2003, 10). In their article Ghost in the Machine (1998), British researchers Vic

Tandy and Tony Lawrence propose that the vibrations individuals characterise as ghost

hauntings, such as seeing spectres, the feeling of being watched or touched by something that

is not there, or emotions such as unease, anxiety and dread, could be attributed to infrasonic

vibrations (Tandy and Lawrence 1998, 280-287). They concluded that visual apparitions and

bodily sensations occur because of high intensity low frequencies; causing the body to

oscillate, blurring vision and affecting the body’s nerve endings. Similarly, "exposure to

vibration often results in short-lived changes in various physiological parameters such as

heart rate... At the onset of vibration exposure, increased muscle tension and initial

hyperventilation have been observed" (Tandy and Lawrence 1998, 280-287). Here feelings

that are attributed to ghost hauntings such as dread and anxiety are also explained by the

presence of infrasound.

With this research in mind I began creating a sound work that could potentially ‘haunt’ its

listener. Using synthesised bass frequencies, I layered a drone that ebbed and flowed

underneath echoes and distortions of my scream. The sound was played through a speaker

105cm high and 42cm in width, with a frequency range of 40hz - 15hz. In front of the

speaker, I moulded a large round circle of earth (approximately two meters in diameter),

moist in the middle and dry at its border, as a base for listeners to sit on and to feel the earth

move around them from the sound’s vibrations (see Appendix A).

Figure 26. Breath Hovering Beneath the Base. 2016. Sound installation. Installation documentation, Cut Thumb

ARI, Brisbane. Photo: Callum McGrath.

Displayed on opening night was the quiet sound of a speaker humming, inviting at its edges

and sickening in its centre with a scream. The black speaker stood as a small figure, located

at the back of an old garden shed. A single red spotlight cast an unnatural red glow onto a

round mound of earth beneath. The colour red was used to signify the meanings correlated to

it, as a warning, as anger and as violence. When related to the witch, the colour red denotes

heat, fire and burnings. I drew upon these meanings and used them to create a hot, humid,

stifling atmosphere, referencing the endless cycle the witch endures: birth, burnt and

rebirthed.

Oscillating and occulting between speaker and air, my scream was free of form, a ghost in

and of itself. Here the scream in absence of my body became a disembodied voice, a sound

that summoned ancient terrifying images to be associated with it. In its red environment the

witch’s scream was free to thud, quiver and plague its listener.

I continued to make experimental sound recordings using my voice as the main instrument

from behind closed doors and played the sounds through speakers in art spaces. I avoided any

self-referential cues, believing that the voice, severed from my body related more strongly to

the image of the witch. Here the witch could continue reciting its historic European imagery

for the listener, without my body in the picture. The same approach applied to the sculptural

objects I was making.

5.2.2 Bound/ Capture/ Encase

Bound to freedom, captured by wind, encased in a body of sin.

My work Bound/Capture/Encase (2015) aimed to re-examine the images that circulated

around the witch as myth, through the attributes and stereotypes associated with the figure.

The domestic broom or besom, when connected with the witch, has developed into an

enchanted and sexualised object (Hume 1998, 7-8). From the manuscripts that recorded acts

of heresy including masturbation with wooden staffs as a form of self-medication to the sexy

depictions of witches mounting them, the broom has a long history with sex and drugs (Zika

2007, 121). According to legend, witches used ‘flying ointments’ made from henbane, a

poisonous hallucinogenic plant that was applied to their genitals using a wooden staff as a

way to medicate and self-care (Rubin 2001, 27). There is a delightful portrayal that

theologian Giordano de Bergamo chronicles in his fifteenth century manuscript Quaestio de

Strigis (Inquiry into Witches) that states, "On certain days or nights they anoint a staff and

ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy

places" (Mann 2000, 89). Here the liberating act of a self-pleasure, which leads not only to

metaphoric explorations of female sexuality but also includes a literal exploration of the

world outside of a domestic space through flying, was reason enough to condemn women.

The first accused witch in Ireland, Alice Kyteler was sentenced to death by burning for

killing her husband with sorcery in 1324 (Callan 2014, 83) and while she may have evaded

the punishment by fleeing Ireland, her servant Petronilla de Meath was flogged and burned at

the stake in her place. As English chronicler Raphael Holinshed stated in his book Chronicles

of England, Scotland and Ireland, Kyteler was charged on several other counts of heresy,

including a piece of evidence authorities found in her home. He wrote “In rifleing the closet

of the ladie, they found a pipe of ointment wherewith she greased her staffe, upon which she

ambled and galloped through thick and thin” (Ledrede 1843, 46).

This account is similar to the artistic depictions created by artists such as Gillot de Givry and

Albert Joseph Pénot. French Illustrator Gillot de Givry’s print illustrates two witches flying

up and out of a house chimney on broomsticks. Historian Charles Zika gave reason for why

numerous flying witches were depicted escaping from chimneys in his book The Appearance

of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe (2007) claiming, "that

this idea of them flying out the chimney is actually kind of a protest against this confinement

in domestic space," and that, "Witchcraft is symbolically in some ways freeing individuals

from that kind of conception of their realm" (Zika 2007, 121).

In Albert Joseph Pénot’s painting Départ Pour le Sabbat (1910), we see this act of freedom.

Here the witch is portrayed nude with her back facing towards the viewer. Her pale derrière

has been made the focal point, almost glowing in the shadows of the clouds, her cheeks

balancing upon the broom handle while her head tilts over her shoulder with a seducing smile

for the spectator. She is unequivocally unrestricted – the painting shows no sign of time or

space, no geographic or domestic context, no houses beneath her feet, no moon or sun to

judge the phase; just a woman and her broom, windswept and uninhibited, hovering in the

atmosphere.

Figure 27. Pénot, Albert Joseph. 1910. Départ Pour le Sabbat. Image. Accessed May 6, 2016.

http://www.papermag.com/the-10-thottiest-witches-in-art-history-1439095592.html.


When researching the relationship between brooms and witches I sought to create a work that

would pare back these overt representations and encase the power, mythology and

significance of the broomstick as well as subtly reference its list of metaphors.

Bind/Capture/Encase (2015) is made up of three oversized, hand-made besoms sheathed in

individually clear plastic zipped cases. The wooden shafts measure 1.5 meters in height while

the bristles add 55cm in length. Each twig was separately positioned around the shaft inside

of the plastic casing and then zipped closed. This method adds fragility to the work and

suggests that these brooms, much like the legends and the hallucinations that surround them,

are volatile. The materiality of the thick metal zip and PVC plastic are fetish aesthetics that

help in the subtle sexualisation of the broom as well as turning them into an appealing

consumerist product.

Figure 28. Bind/ Capture/ Encase, sculpture. 2016. Tasmanian oak wood, straw, PVC sheeting, zips.

Installation documentation, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne.

I wanted my work to be free of body politics, objectification and racism. As a way to fight

institutional racism within the arts, I believed taking my body out of the equation was the best

way for me to present my ideas on the archetypal image of the witch. I was protecting the

sound recordings and objects I was creating from the body they were born from. Little did I

realise that this decision uncovered my own internalised racism. While the research I was

undertaking referenced the image of the witch from Europe and India, by excluding my body

and ancestral voice in my creative practice, I was representing a Westernised or colonised

image of the witch. I wore the witch as a mask, amour and shield, but in doing so the witch

was obliterating my body out of existence. On days when I am honest with myself, I stop

charging the witch as a separate entity and concede that I was using the witch as an excuse to

erase myself.

I have come to understand this form of self-erasure as “normative violence”, a term by

feminist author and scholar Judith Butler (2007, XX). Her writing on normative violence

describes the insidious and systemic methods in which ‘different’ bodies are assigned and

marginalised (Butler 2007, XIX-XX). She suggests that “the repudiation of bodies, for their

sex, sexuality, and/or colour is an ‘expulsion’ followed by a ‘repulsion’ that founds and

consolidates culturally hegemonic identities along sex/race/sexuality axes of differentiation”

(Butler 2007, 182). It is here I find my body – a body of differentiation, and it was I that was

punishing and silencing myself for being Other. I finally recognised the limitations of the

acousmatic voice. I believed for so long that a disembodied voice was supreme, infinite and

universal but as proclaimed by Iris Dressler, “…the voice behind the curtain in fact appears

to be a mere theatricalization of power, that is of the discursive sovereignty of the speaker

and the sanctity of his or her speech. Indeed who would want to interrupt a curtain?”

(Dressler 2014, 213).

By placing my voice in speakers and creating objects that denied my presence I was

constructing parameters around my work that provided a sense of authority though

anonymity. Nonetheless, these restrictions only formed an illusion. My disembodied voice

was a “mere theatricalisation of power” (Dressler 2014, 213).

It had reduced my voice to a spectacle that feigned liberation but at its core denied myself a

voice of my own. A voice without expression and body is a voice without meaning. It is my

facial expressions, emotions and bodily gestures that build and deliver a voice. My voice,

when visually influenced by my body, offers meaning to both my image and my vocal

expressions.

When citing Mary Douglas’s book Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution

and Taboo, Butler states “Any discourse that establishes the boundaries of the body serves

the purpose of instating and naturalizing certain taboos regarding the appropriate limits,

postures, and modes of exchange that define what it is that constitutes bodies” (2007, 166).

And as Douglas states, “It is only by exaggerating the difference between within and without,

above and below, male and female, with and against, that a semblance of order is created”

(Douglas 2003, 4). Framed within intersectional feminism and embodied subjectivity, my

body as a queer Anglo-Indian artist upends the established order and status quo of cis white

performance artists. Bell Hooks asserts in her book Black Looks: Race and Representation

(1992), “As a radical intervention we must develop revolutionary attitudes about race and

representation. To do this we must be willing to think critically about images. We must be

willing to take risks” (1992, 7). It was time to take down the curtains and allow my body to

speak for itself.

5.3 Water and Voice: Purification

In order to purify myself after using the witch as a façade to conceal myself, I needed to

cleanse.

I dreamt about bathing in primordial waters

Thick black cloaks swathed off my skin

I pulled witches hats and brooms sticks from my matted hair

To rid myself of the witches tropes and garbs

I needed to wash the Westernised witch off my body

And read the witch from my own history.

5.3.1 Body of Voice

My work Body of Voice was exhibited in Gallery 2 at Metro Arts in March 2017. The title is

a play on the term ‘body of water’ and aimed to appropriate and invert purification rituals in

the interest of creating an uninhibited space for my own body and culture. As an act of

reclamation, I felt I must exorcise and decolonise myself, and it seemed fitting to use the

healing symbolism of water while referencing purification rituals in order to reverse the

colonisation of my body and mind.

What would it feel like, to be baptised by my own voice?

Water as a symbolic neutraliser, healer and purifier is used in ritual purification. This is not

only evident in Christianity but is engrained into the ritual practices of Hinduism, Judaism

and Islam. Its purpose is to free an individual from uncleanliness both physically by washing

away dirt, and symbolically by washing away sin (Frevel and Nihan 2013,178).

On the opening night a large round pool of water (1 meter in diameter) sat at the back of the

space. A red neon cross on the ceiling was reflected in the water’s surface and produced an

eerie, otherworldly glow. The pool had a meagre 30cm depth, but in the cast of red light,

assumed itself as a gaping black hole. A swollen mound of soil buried the edges of the pool,

as though it had risen from the gallery floor. The volume of soil acted as heat insulation,

creating a humid atmosphere in the small gallery space. The water evaporated over the bed of

soil, dampening its surface and emitting an earthy smell that filled the room. On the vapours

of dew licked soil mirages of murky forest floors replaced the gallery setting. Distant dull and

diluted sounds breathed heaviness into the space. The sounds rumbled out of two waterproof

speakers that were submerged in the liquid, and in the dark light disappeared (see Appendix

B). Gallery attendees were invited to partially submerge themselves in the water. I watched

as each individual interacted with my liquid voice, unconsciously performing their own ritual

as they knelt their bodies against the soil, lowered their heads and pressed an ear to the sound

within the water. Recorded monotonous beats, breaths and moans softly rippled the water’s

surface, until the scream broke the liquid tension and lapped against cheeks, ears and

immersed limbs. My acousmatic voice was breaking through the curtain, and making itself

visible.

Figure 29. Body of Voice. 2017. Installation performance work. Pond, water, glass mirror, soil, red neon lights,

waterproof speakers, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Installation documentation, Metro Arts, Brisbane. Photo: Callum McGrath.

The scream when attached to water conjures images of sirens; the witches of the sea; a voice

within water that beckons. In Greek mythology sirens, otherwise known as harpies or

mermaids, were frequently described as strikingly beautiful yet dangerous women, who

would use their voice to sing enchanting lullabies, luring sailors to their deaths. As described

by Solheim in her dissertation Sounding the Text: Listening to Gender in Mediterranean

Culture in French, the tale of Odysseus and the Sirens is fundamentally concerned with

silencing women (2011). While Odysseus has “his crew plug their ears with beeswax in order

to keep them from hearing the sirens song” (Solheim 2011, 9) in pursuance of securing safe

passage around the sharp rocks, the dominant male narrative in the tale keeps the sirens from

sounding their calls. It is through such tales and images that women’s silence arises (Solheim

2011, 9). This is done not only from gagging and obstructing their mouths, but also from the

fear that their calls will fall on deaf ears. In the lead up to the exhibition I worried the same

would happen to my own voice, as I watched it swim around in the pool of water. As a way

to evade a similar fate for my voice, I decided to perform live by feeding my voice to an

active listening audience.

A week after the exhibition opening, I returned to perform live alongside and in conversation

with my watery, acousmatic voice. Seated, facing the mound of earth and pool of water, I

performed on the bed of soil, with my own reflective surface beneath me; a round mirror that

I sat upon. I grounded myself by spreading my legs apart to rest at either side of the mirror

and dug my bare-feet into the soil. I rooted myself to the ritual by looping and tightening a

microphone lead around my leg. Now embedded in the space, within this moment of time, I

initiated the ritual by ladling handfuls of soil; loosely spreading my fingers apart I allowed

the dirt to fall between my fingers onto the mirror below. A contact microphone attached to

the mirror played back the sound of the soil hitting the surface. A faint waterlogged scream

growled from the pool across from me, I replied by hitting the mirror below me, with

increasing momentum I continued to slam my hand against the mirror.

Figure 29.1. Body of Voice. 2017. Installation performance work. Pond, water, glass mirror, soil, red neon lights, waterproof speakers, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone,

amplifier. Installation documentation. Metro Arts, Brisbane. Photo: Callum McGrath.

Using effect pedals and a contact microphone I created a looped soundscape. The contact

microphone amplified the sound of the trickling dirt onto the mirror and was punctuated by

the sound of my hands hitting the surface. I breathed heavily into the microphone now

wrapped around my leg, and whispered incoherent secrets and incantations. This cacophony

of built sound was brought to a crescendo when my body erupted with a scream. I caused a

delay between the scream leaving my mouth and its arrival through the speaker using my

sound equipment. It was now a call and response between the voice of my body, the voice

within the water and the voice within the speaker. The scream played back through the

speaker, another scream made its presence known in the vibrating water and my body

screamed again. It was an equal back and forth, until I was not able to control my body and

released a violent succession of eruptive screams, drawing attention away from the water and

the speaker and placing the emphasis on my physical body and voice. The delay caught up

and each scream I produced layered on top of the last, creating a wall of high-pitched sound.

The scream peaked, and then faded, exposing the voice within the water once again. The

residue of the performance existed in the gallery space for the duration of the exhibition.

Haunting echoes of the recorded live performance played throughout the space and

intersected with the voice inside the pool of water. The soil dried as the pool of water

evaporated, the smell of fresh soil weakened, and the mound of earth, shifted by imprints of

bodies, lost its sharp circular structure. On the final day of the show I arrived to switch the

sound equipment off and begin the process of de-installing. While reaching into the pool of

water I fumbled for the speakers and met my own reflection.

Our arms touching

Our figures vibrating

I sunk my body in the liquid

And the scream swallowed me whole.

5.3.2 Lustration

After executing Body of Voice, I thought of ways to refine the work, to have my live

performance activate the pool of water rather than the pool of water housing an isolated and

independent sound. Lustration (2017) developed as a performance that produced a vibrating

pool of water openly manipulated by my voice without the presence of the acousmatic. In

December 2017 I activated Lustration in Seventh Gallery in Melbourne. The title Lustration

references the ancient Roman ritual of the same name, and is a ceremonial rite of sacrifice

and purification. The practice of lustration also became popular in the late Vedic period in

India, commonly called nirdjana-vidhi (Patyal 1993, 327).

In the centre of the gallery space stood a large pyre of logs and branches approximately 55cm

in height. At the core of the pyre lay a subwoofer with its cone facing upright and filled to the

brim with water. To its side was a circular bed of woodchips, where I positioned myself to

perform and activate the pyre from its insides. Soil had always been the earthly element I

used to ground myself with but as the sculptural element consisted of wood, I felt it would be

compatible to develop a connection by positioning myself on the same material. I again

anchored myself to the work by wrapping the microphone cord around my leg as a way to

complete the circuit between body, voice, sound equipment and subwoofer/wood pyre.

Buried beneath the woodchips and my body was a sheet of metal with a contact microphone

attached, as I hit the ground the sheet of metal reverberated and the sound bubbled the wood

pyre like a cauldron. Matching the visual vibration of Body of Voice, the water rippled apart,

but this time it was my performed howling and screaming voice that was directly moving

through the speaker.

Figure 30. Lustration. 2017. Installation performance work. Wood, water, mulch, metal, subwoofer with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne

Photo: Dom Krapski.

Figure 30.1. Lustration. 2017. Installation performance work. Wood, water, mulch, metal, subwoofer with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery,

Melbourne Photo: Jacinta Lombardozzi.

The wooden pyre alludes to the witch-burnings of the 14th-18th centuries and the subwoofer

attempts to give voice to this history, while the vibrating and sounding water bites these

historical flames away. After the performance, the residue of the live performance continued

to vibrate within the pyre for two more weeks. In this time a small spider web appeared in the

branches that surrounded the top of the subwoofer, and wrapped up within it, a fly. The

natural earthy elements of Lustration had surpassed its technological form, and created its

own ritual of life, death and sacrifice.

The upwelling and gush of voicing water yields a rhythmic pull to all small

creatures.

Perhaps this is how siren hunted.

Figure 30.2. Lustration. 2017. Installation performance work. Detail image. Wood, water, mulch, metal,

subwoofer with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne Photo: Kieran Swann.

While I believe these works were successful in exploring purification rituals and the figure of

the witch, I consider them as only scratching the surface of embodied performance and the

subversive nature of the scream. On reflection, I have found that the vessels of water were

merely new ways to repress and contain my voice; the water was just another curtain to hide

behind.

My scream should not be diluted nor hidden.

My body should not be disguised, but amplified.

5.4 Iterative Screaming: Parallel Presence

When describing the voices of gods, prophets and deities, Indian Author Ranjit Hoskote

suggests in his lecture “Notes towards the Possibility of Transformative Listening” that:

…[Their] voice is never a simple mandate or a promise of clarity. It arrives suddenly

and without warning; it disrupts rather than smoothening the textures of the listener’s

experience… The act of attending to such a voice, the voice of the Other, the

sometimes sublime and terrifying Other, breaks and re-makes the attending self. And

the insight offered by such a voice is oblique, its tone tender and vulnerable even

while declaring its own infallibility. As it shapes a proclamation, such a voice can yet

appeal to be tested out and established through practice (2010, 2).

This is the voice I work towards, the voice I practice, test and aim to establish. This is how I

perceive the scream. While it is infallible, it is also tender and vulnerable. It is a powerful

expulsion and extension of self in an exposed setting. It should be strong enough to carry

itself without incurring blind listeners, who close their eyes in order to hear. In looking and

listening, they see and hear the scream, in all its layers, spectres and frequencies. A scream

that is political, personal and ancestral.

As Jacques Rancière stated in the book Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (1999), a

voice becomes political when, “those who have no right to be counted as speaking begins

make themselves of some account” (Rancière, 1999, 27); when these individuals make

visible that which is not seen, and “make hearable that which has not been heard” (Dressler

2014, 215). While previous artworks dissociated my body from voice, these more recent

projects involved bringing my body into the gallery, both physically and referentially to be

seen, heard and understood. Parallel Presence arose with my desire to create these outcomes

by including the four rules of ritual I have been examining: voice, gesture, object and residue.

Marking space with repetitive gesture.

Blackening air with noise.

Searching out crisp floors to ruin, soil and stain.

During this project I have performed Parallel Presence five times. The idea of re-staging and

re-performing is not simply founded on re-creating but on strategizing adaptive measures for

the work in new environments. In each iteration, I experience new emotions that are often

determined by the intentions I have set for the ritual, the time period I have had to ground

myself in the space, the kind of energy the attending audience brings to the space, and most

of all where my head and heart are at. As my emotions alter, their sensations affect the

embodied performance. The length of time I perform for relies on how long I can stay in my

introspective ritual state, and the screams I produce depends on how secure I feel within the

space and the audience. In this way each iteration provides an opportunity for renewal and

further development.

5.4.1 Iteration I: ‘Netherworlds’, First Draft, Sydney. 5th–27th Oct 2016

The first time I performed Parallel Presence was at Sydney’s First Draft Gallery space.

Leading up to my performance, I was shaken by anxiety, hindered by excessive quivers and

bodily tremors and lost my ability to regulate my breathing. I lit a circle of six candles that

rested horizontally in rudimentary candleholders made of Tasmanian oak wood, and

galvanised steel, right-angled plumbing elbows and flanged. The candles dripped wax onto a

circular mirror rested on the ground below, as I walked towards the back of the gallery space.

Waiting for me was a table laid out with sound equipment. I stood behind the table, away

from the dripping candles and built layers of sound with electronic equipment and

screamed… standing, from behind an Ikea table (see Appendix C). Without an additional

Veda’s element to ground myself within the ritual, the performance failed to transcend its

technological form.

My screams left my body only as a way for the work to finish rather than a signal of power,

reclamation, or sovereignty with the witch, I was not present and neither was the witch. I felt

unbearably uncomfortable, standing like a DJ behind a turntable, towards an audience facing

me with folded arms across their bodies. I felt small, and the work felt like it had failed. I was

still determined to create a work that would embody the scream, the figure of the witch and

ritual as a formidable act of subversion. While my first attempt at Parallel Presence was an

uncomfortable and disheartening experience, I was still chasing the pure elation and the

ultimate ecstasy of when I would truly experience catharsis through action and voice.

Figure 31. Parallel Presence. 2016. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Galvanised steel, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, with sound created through effect pedals, contact

microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. First Draft Gallery, Sydney. Image: Azura Jenkins.

5.4.2 Iteration II: ‘Black Mass’, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne. 1-16th Dec 2016

Before my exhibition BLACK MASS, I had time to re-evaluate the work, understand where

the fear within came from and subsequently altered the ritual according to what made me feel

secure and safe. During the installation period I meditated in the gallery space, breathing and

exhaling, visualising every molecule in the air joining with my breath and the water vapours

from my tongue. The gallery soon became my sanctuary. On opening night I grounded

myself in a bed of soil after lighting the six candles. It felt as though the visitors were

entering my home, that I had true dominion and commanded the space around me in

accordance (see Appendix D).

Figure 32. Parallel Presence. 2017. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Galvanised

steel, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, salt, soil, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne. Image: Cameron Dale.

I scream, and I hear people around me turn to each other and murmur, I scream, and I hear

people leave, the front door to the gallery closing after them, I scream because I have already

gone too far, I scream because I am not done screaming. When I finish there is not enough

time to catch my breath, I walk into the crowd, becoming a spectator of the performance

residue, while the sound still resonates out of the amplifier. The candles attached to the

candelabras have nearly gone out, the hot wax has sealed over the mirror’s reflection below.

The portal is sealed, but the residue of the ritual remains. The sound recording of the

performance, the wax covered mirror and the mound of soil, now left with my body’s

impression, remained in the gallery for the three-week duration of the exhibition. Their

vibrations left to echo, a ritual now offered to another realm.

5.4.3 Iteration III: ‘Netherworlds’, The Walls Art Space, Gold Coast. 5th–19th Aug 2017

The third time I performed Parallel Presence was at The Walls Art Space at the Gold Coast

(see Appendix E). For this iteration I grounded myself in a bed of rock salt. Within rituals salt

acts a purifier and as a protector. The space was small, and I felt cramped and claustrophobic.

The install was rushed. I had no time to breath my body into the space in the lead up. It was

foreign. I felt foreign. The scream was hard to build and the towering bodies of people

standing around me as I sat overwhelmed me. I sensed that I was being leered at rather than

united with the audience. Afterwards I put a hold on the work, and wanted to re-think other

modes of how it might exist.

Figure 33. Parallel Presence. 2017. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Galvanised

steel, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, salt with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. The Walls Art Space, Gold Coast. Image: Cameron Dale.

5.4.4 Iteration IV: ‘Jeremy Hynes Award Presentation’, IMA, Brisbane. 25th–28th October

2017

The last time I performed Parallel Presence was at IMA’s Jeremy Hynes Award

Presentation. During the lead up to the event, I re-developed the candleholders by designing

polished brass custom bases and heads and grew the work in size by using 12 candles rather

than six. A larger mirror of 110cm and a spotlight that would cast different shadows of the

work were also introduced.

The scream was piercingly loud.

I performed in the alfresco courtyard that acts as the entrance to the IMA. The outdoor

acoustics threw my voice around and into the atmosphere. The wind blew out the candles as I

lit them. The air swallowed up the depth of my scream and left behind a shearing pitch. I was

engulfed and spat out. I felt tortured and cursed by the work I put so much into. The contact

microphones refused to work, and the scream left my body in desperation and exacerbation.

As I finished, I lifted my body from the ground and walked away from the work, with the

scream still echoing into the open air. As I looked around me I observed audience members

who had covered their ears from the scream, the gallery workers who scrambled to contain

the sound and the building’s security officer who ran past me while the keys on his belt tolled

against the shrieking ringing. I found refuge in the gallery’s bathroom, laughed to myself

about the commotion but then wept as I heard my looped screams from outside abruptly halt.

My voice had been unplugged, and the image of hands clasped over ears stayed with me.

Figure 34. Parallel Presence, 2017. Installation performance work. Performance documentation. Polished brass, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirror, bees wax candles, salt, stage light, with sound created through effect pedals,

contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Image: Laura Misso.

I had erupted with a voice that escaped me and became its own entity. Something I had in the

past strived for, and now that it had happened, I realised how unprepared I was. I was still

responsible for it however; responsible for the monstrous sound that plagued the audience

and the gallery’s surrounding neighbours. It was explained, in no uncertain terms that the

gallery would have to conduct damage control with the surrounding community.

This was the point at which I could no longer un-see and un-feel the oppressions enacted

upon the unbridled female voice. I wanted this to be the breaking point that would set a fire

within me, where I realised all spaces can become spaces for intersectional feminist

assembly. That it was here the museum acoustics could bear witness to my fury as

institutions are not just complicit in these power structures, but actively choose to reproduce

them. But it wasn’t. I stopped screaming for a year after this performance. I was too shaken.

My scream was unwelcome. And I needed to heal.

5.5 Meditative Performance

5.5.1 Bell bodies

A week after performing my scream at the IMA, I returned to join artists Leen Reith and

Courtney Coombs as part of the First Thursday program with the IMA. I was nervous at the

thought of returning, but Courtney prefaced the project as a safe space to test new ideas based

on a guided evening of unlearning meditation, mediation and contemplation (Institute of

Modern Art 2017).

I could not stop myself from recalling the image of the audience with their hands covering

their ears. The incessant ringing plagued me. I processed it in the only way I knew how, I

made a sound work as a way to reflect, meditate and shift my rut.

How could I turn that ringing into a sacred sound?

I performed Bell Bodies, a live sound work developed and delivered as a way to ring out and

pay tribute to the scream. Foam mats were sparsely arranged on the gallery floor, and the

small audience was invited to lie down as I began the sound work. I rang a singing bowl and

breathed meditative breaths as a way to cleanse the space and ignite the ears for listening. It

is said that the sound of singing bowls can be perceived as a colour, as the quality and texture

of their sound contains timbre, or tone colour (Slawson 1981, 132). The timbre of the signing

bowl also resembles the pitch that occurs when each of my screams are layered on top of one

another in Parallel Presence; the point in which each scream meets the next until they bleed

into one singular note. The lights were down and no eyes were on me, I was free to play with

the sounds of bells and with each ring I felt lighter.

Figure 35. Bell Bodies, 2017. Sound performance. Performance documentation. Foam mats, bells, singing bowl, microphone, head torch. Photo by Louis Lim.

5.5.2 The Ocean Between Us

Bell Bodies led me to further explore ritualised mediative sound practice. Wanting to relearn

my body through ritualised and meditative movement, I enrolled into a Kundalini Dance

Class. In Sanskrit, Kundalini translates to ‘coiled earth energy’ and is described as a serpent

or snake (Dale 2011, 4-6). It is a form of yoga practice that dates back to the Vedic

Upanishads writings (c. 1,000 B.C. - 500 B.C.) (Dale 2011, 24). Its teachings are grounded in

the belief that an individual’s spiritual energy or life force is located at the base of the spine

(Dale 2011, 6). It has also been described as the most precarious yogic practice, with yogi,

mystic and author Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev warning against its use (Vasudev 2017). It has

this reputation as it unlocks the third eye and produces an energy similar to electricity that,

“has no direction of its own” (Vasudev 2017) and therefore requires a disciplined student and

an attentive teacher. With this knowledge in mind, I arrived at my first class, feeling

apprehensive but excited to awaken my sleeping snake.

Circular coiled snake

In a pool of water

Sitting in the pelvic bone

Lapping slowly

Calmly.

A middle-aged white woman played a flute, and the others, draped in flowing fabric rolled

their bodies upright and moaned distinctively and erotically in unison. Their coiled snakes

unravelling, stretching upwards, and arousing their charkas, or so they would have

themselves believe. I’m the darkest body, in a room of white, trying to connect with my

Indian heritage. Yet all I see is white.

White appropriation. White ignorance. White privilege.

This is not enlightenment. My coiled snake is pissed. Biting me from the inside. I leave,

cancelling my class enrolment. My chakras are unlit candles, I wonder if the wick is even

long enough to light. I called the only Indian yoga teacher I know that practices in Brisbane,

speaking through my angered snake I hiss down the phone and complain about the

whitewashing of yogic traditions and philosophies. She suggests I start private classes with

her. She understands my creative practice, and what I want to achieve. She is a trained yoga

and meditation teacher, qualified in India and Australia and above all she is my mother,

Charlie Blacklock.

Mothering anger through movement and mediation.

Learning to understand my body through my mother.

Breathing to Heal.

While yoga and meditation are guided towards finding neutrality and peace, I didn’t want to

expel my anger, but to understand and nurture it. I also wanted to learn recuperative breathing

techniques that would help strengthen the control of my breath in order to better protect my

voice during my screaming performances.

We practice together once a week, her as my teacher, and I as her student. One afternoon, as

we closed our eyes for meditation I felt our breathing align as we practiced our Ujjayi Breath,

a technique that aids in rooting chakras, and creates an energy flow for healing (Brown and

Gerbarg 2012, 10, 38). My breath matched the beat of my mother’s breath and created a

melody. Sometimes we hear spectral melodies in the rhythmic drone of a train, in the

dripping of a tap against a steel sink, or the drumming of rain against a window. In my

meditative state, I was open to hear it in the beating breath of two generations. I wanted to

preserve and record this moment of intimacy; I also wanted to share at least some of the

knowledge my mother had so generously gifted me.

With her agreement, we began collaborating on our one night only event Ocean Between Us.

On the 7th of June, 2018 my mother and I facilitated and performed an evening of meditative

breath work at the Institute of Modern Art. We aimed to create a participatory meditation and

ritualised body practice that blended my mother’s yoga practice with my sound practice, as

both of us use breathing techniques as a method of grounding and as an expression of agency

and sovereignty. By bringing the practice of yoga and meditation into the gallery, we opened

up conversations around how these practices have been appropriated in the West as part of a

broader discussion on colonisation. We were able to share our perspectives on navigating

these issues within the dynamics of family, and in our respective cultural and artistic

practices.

The evening began by providing context and translation on the yogic and Sanskrit terms my

mother and I would be using throughout the practice, and we ended the evening by creating a

sound piece titled Ocean Between Us, which used the Ujjayi Pranayama. Prana translates to

energy, and Yama translates to control, together they are interpreted as the regulation and the

control of our bodies’ energies through breathing (Iyengar 1989, 12). The Ujjayi Pranayama

was the same breathing technique we used as the cadence of our breaths harmonized for the

first time, and was employed as the predominant sound element in our performance. By

focusing on the breath, we aimed to illuminate the relationship we each share with it. As

writers Ami Ronnberg and Kathleen Martin proclaim in The Book of Symbols: Reflections on

Archetypal Images:

Breath animates the clay of our being. It is the lusty cry of a newborn, and the essence

of wind, spirit, muse and sound… the sacred texts of India describe the vital breath of

the living being, rhythmic and pulsating, as the microcosmic form of the alternating

day and night, active and rest of cosmic time (Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 16).

The breath is the most intimate relationship we have in our life. It is something we do

naturally, from the day we are born and remains with us until the end of our life but little

thought is given to the breath. Meditation and Yoga teach that breathing consciously has

numerous beneficial outcomes, from healing physical pain to helping with mental health and

that it can create vitality to life (Brown and Gerbarg 2012, 10). This was an opportunity to

resonate consciously with our breath and our bodies.

Figure 36. Ocean Between Us, 2018. Collaborative performance between Naomi and Charlie Blacklock.

Performance documentation Yoga Mats, Pillows, effect pedals, speakers, microphones, singing bowl. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Photo by Louis Lim.

After taking the participants through the sonic meditation practice, they were invited to lie

down, and experience the sound of the breath as tidal currents. The Ujjayi Pranayama

technique is also known as the Ocean Breath or Wave Breath and is a slow conscious and

controlled breath that requires constricting in the back of the throat, and as air washes

through it, an audible texture of waves can be heard. A singing bowl signalled the start of the

sound work, and primed mum and I to ready our Ujjayi breaths for the microphones. We

breathed waves that lapped in and out of synchronicity for 15 minutes as I added effects to

them using delay, echo and bass. At differing moments, the bodies of water shifted from still

oceans, to storming seas, and waters gently echoing inside rocky caves (see Appendix F).

Figure 36.1. Ocean Between Us, 2018. Collaborative performance between Naomi and Charlie Blacklock. Yoga Mats, Pillows, effect pedals, speakers, microphones, singing bowl. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Photo by

Louis Lim.

There is an innate connection to this audible wave sound, “In each of us, salty, amniotic

waters run in our mnemonic veins. Tidal currents course through our deeps and shallows,

yielding to the rhythmic pull of the sun and moon” (Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 36). As

stated by Mitchell, Hamilton, Steggarda and Bean in the Journal of Biological Chemistry up

to 60% of the human body is water. Our skin, heart, brain, kidneys and lungs hold over 60%

and in some cases 80%, and even our bones contain 31% water (1945, 625-637). The sound

work developed out of the desire to acknowledge the life and energy within another body,

simply through the gesture of breathing and listening to the ocean between us.

Attending QCA’s gallery panel discussion Dark Rooms: Women Directing the Lens, I

witnessed Jill Orr speak about her performance practice. She professed that rather than a

classic artist studio; she had an exercise studio filled with floor mats for practicing Zumba.

Her reasoning was that as a performance artist, your body is your material and for as long as

you want to create you must experiment and play with it as material. Inside my private

sessions with my mum, we did just this; we twisted, contorted and strengthen our bodies;

healing them and breathing life into them. The yoga and meditation sessions have been

invaluable; they contributed practical methods to aid in strengthening my performance,

provided clarity on my practice, and culture, and illuminated the direction my practice needed

to be heading in next.

5.6 Graduate Exhibition: Conjuring Alterity

The exhibition Conjuring Alterity offered two performances that ritualised the figure of the

witch, the female scream, cultural alterity and self-representation. The works were activated

on Samhain (31st of October), a Witches’ Sabbath that marks a new year on the Druid

calendar and signifies a liminal time where the veil between the material world and the

Otherworld fades, where ancestors can be called upon (Farrar and Farrar 1981, 192). The

exhibition subsequently ended on the first day of Diwali (7th of November), the Hindu

festival of lights, which signifies “victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance,

and good over evil” (Narayana and Heiligman 2008, 31). These dates directly correlate to the

two performances, Parallel Presence and Padma.

5.6.1 Parallel Presence

Visions of witch-related rituals incite images of dilapidated houses with creaky floorboards,

cobwebbed stairwells and dank, haunted basements. Parallel Presence (see Appendix G) as

an act of ritual is concerned with clinically exposing rituals in a contemporary gallery setting

in order to bring the body, the voice and the archetypal materials of ritual to a point of

convergence. A cool white spotlight frames a custom-built 12 stem circular candelabra. Made

from Tasmanian oak and brass, each stem is constructed to meet various heights of my body

(genitals, stomach and nipples). Here the candles act as surrogates for a coven concocted

from parts of myself. The stems of the candelabra emerge from a thick ring of salt and face

inward. The unlit candles wait willingly to drip wax on to a large round mirror (110 cm in

diameter) below. The spotlight, centred on the mirror from overhead, directs a beam of light

onto the mirror below, and the mirror reflects the light rays onto the wall behind. The angle

of the reflection casts an askew glowing moon, with candlestick shadows overlapping and

crossing the reflection. The co-dependant relationship between light and mirror is ancient, the

“Mirror is a reflective container whose source of power is light” (Ronnberg and Martin 2010,

590). The reflective mirrored surfaces of water, polished metal and glass all reveal their

potential in the light; it is how the moon is echoed in rolling seas, transmuting the liquid into

a cosmic ocean.

Figure 37. Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass, Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirrors, bees wax candles, salt and stage lights with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Charlie Hillhouse.

The salt circle surrounding the candles, references a witch ritual known as Casting the Circle,

a technique that is traditionally used as a protective barrier between the practitioner and what

they are summoning (Farrar and Farrar 1996, 295). Here the ring of salt acts as a

metaphysical energetic construct that shields, protects and defends the audience and myself

from the mirror/portal, and what may await on the other side. Mirrors have long been objects

of superstition, “early peoples believed that in such reflections the soul element could be

perceived and even today the fantasy persists that the mirror can steal ones soul” (Ronnberg

and Martin 2010, 590). This is the mysterious esoteric force of mirrors, that in its “seeming

depths, the sense that beyond the mirror image of our immediate reality might be seen

something entirely different” (Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 590).

The mirror is a paradox; it feeds back an image that is asymmetrical, it does not provide an

accurate duplicate of ourselves but rather a reversed reality, one where we are read back to

front. Salt, while purifying and is essential to life, is also paradoxically toxic and lethal; “it

enhances food, and can make it bitter; it stings and heals; it kills microbes and can destroy

tissue” (Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 114). Contained within Parallel Presence are an array of

these paradoxes and tensions. The mirror casts both shadows and reversed reflections, the salt

is both cleansing and destroying, the voice is both soft and loud; transgressive and

recuperative, the flames of the candles embody death and renewal, and the presence of my

body as an Anglo-Indian woman presents the contradictions of the image of the witch; a

figure from British folklore once persecuted that now stands as a feminist symbol of power,

and in India a hunted image, where accusations of witchcraft are a death sentence. Much like

the image of the witch, Parallel Presence is a succession of opposing allegories that exist

simultaneously within the gaping mouth of a scream.

The first deed in activating Parallel Presence involves tracing the outside of the mirror while

lighting each candle. Dressed in a black gown I emerge from a red-lit back room, the

audience gathers and quiets as they sit communally around the objects; candles, mirrors and

salt. I walk towards the candles, light a match and commence burning each wick, tracking the

edge of the salt circle with my bare feet as I go. The lit candles form a border between light

and dark, their warm rays reference those used in spiritual and religious ceremonies, whose

aura suggests a “divine presence suffusing the ordinary world” (Ronnberg and Martin 2010,

580).

As wax begins to burn and drip onto the mirror, a contact microphone picks up the generated

sound and amplifies it. The symbol of the mirror as a magical instrument, acts as a portal to

another world and a summoning tool, while the dripping candles act as instruments that

sound the essence of a ritual. Together the 12 candle stems and round mirror form a clock

face, and the dripping of wax clicks and drips the beat of metronome that knows no time.

The candelabra can additionally be read as an elementary astrolabe, a complicated and ornate

circular instrument, often make of brass and wood (Gunther 1976, 82), used by astronomers

to observe and measure “the altitude of a heavenly body, and calculate time” (Ohashi 1997,

202). Astrolabes have a long history in India following its introduction by Greek astrologers

and astronomers in 1351 (Ohashi 1997, 199). Texts from 1428 illustrate the astrolabes

popularisation throughout the region (Ohashi 1997, 202). Today astrolabes are often seen as

museum artefacts. In order to destabilise the global hegemonic narratives that cast Asians in

the role of ‘primitive’ I draw upon the symbolism and function of astrolabes within Parallel

Presence as a way to invigorate its elaborate and technical complexities in addition to

honouring its place within my culture.

Figure 37.1 Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass,

Tasmanian oak wood, glass mirrors, bees wax candles, salt and stage lights with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, vocal microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Charlie Hillhouse.

Positioned opposite the candelabra/astrolabe rests a second ring of salt framing an additional

round mirror. Placed on the surface of the salt are sound equipment tools; microphone, effect

pedals and a mixing board. After lighting the candles, I ground myself in the mirror and salt.

I spread my legs either side of the mirror, creating a relaxed flow of energy from the top of

my head to the bottom of my spine and wrap the microphone cable around my leg. I begin to

build the sound element by taking handfuls of salt and dropping them onto the mirror lying

underneath me. Attached to it is another contact microphone that picks up the sound of the

salt tapping against the cold surface, and it resonates against the sounds of dripping wax. I

record a sample of the tapping and manipulate it into a monotonous beat. I inhale and respire

heavily into the microphone, allowing voice to surge out, moaning a heavy breath. I focus the

cadence of my Ujjayi breath down into the microphone, elongating each breath until I find

my rhythm.

Figure 37.2 Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass,


Breathe

A breath that is familiar

That draws on linage

That resonates and reiterates a past

That can be connected to

Exhale

A scream that is collective

That inflames the soul

That purges and purifies

That cannot be ignored.

I flick the switch of a pedal that emits a charge of low wave frequencies. It surges slowly in

and out like a pair of large wings beating up and down, and mimics the pace of my breath. It

vibrates and fills the gallery space, and thickens the atmosphere. I strike the mirror with the

palm of my hand, the sound echoes out with the repetitive beat of salt, wax and subwoofer. I

hit it again and again and again, with each strike I build and prepare my body and voice to

scream…

I want metamorphosis

I will not soften the edges of my tongue/

I will surrender to my fury /

I will shriek, yell and cry /

I will inhale deeply and devour the air around me/

I am too scorched to scream without passion.

Figure 37.3. Parallel Presence. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. polished brass,


In the liminal space of screaming I drop out of reality, I do not register the volume of people

around me, or that in the thick of it I had chipped my tooth on the microphone. I screamed

until each ounce and drop of air was squeezed out of my lungs, until all I could do was

wheeze. I briefly came too and saw the mass of bodies sitting with me on the floor as I

untangled myself from the microphone cord, severing my connection to Parallel Presence.

As I stood the white light illuminating the work switched off, the candles continued to drip,

snap and drop onto the mirror; I placed my feet cautiously between bodies, while the

audience shifted and prepared a path that steered me straight to Padma. As my foot hit the

bed of soil, I felt grounded once again.

5.6.2 Padma

Provoked by my sound performance Bell Bodies in 2017 and the ritual meditative practice I

had developed with my mother, Padma turns metallic noise into melodic sound by using

brass bells and a singing bowl to ring out the resonance of the scream from Parallel Presence

(see Appendix H). Similar to Bell Bodies, it is the aftermath of the scream, and uses ritual

action and mirrors to evoke self-referential imagery in order to honour the voice, the breath,

and my Indian culture. The work consist of six hand cut mirrors, shaped into decoratively

curved arches, referencing the sacred architectural shape and how they are used to frame

entryways and windows of holy spaces such as mosques, temples and churches (Renard

2001, 399).

Each mirror rests in a black wooden frame that reclines the mirror at a deep backward angle,

the base of each frame buried in the thick bed of soil. The mirrors are positioned in a circle,

and fan out to resemble petals of a flower, specifically a lotus flower. Padma translates to

“Sacred Lotus” in Sanskrit, signifying the revered and metaphoric standing of India’s

national flower, the lotus. Much like the open flames of candles and salt in Parallel Presence,

the lotus is a symbol of rebirth and purity as it is blooms with the sun, sinks back into water

with the moon and is born from mud (Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 158). Mud-born (pankaja)

is a Sanskrit poetic term for the Indian lotus. As a poetic image and visual icon, the lotus

symbol evokes the realization that, “all life, rooted in mire, nourished by decomposed matter,

growing upward through a fluid and changing medium, opens radiantly into space and light”

(Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 158).

Figure 38. Padma. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. Glass mirrors, brass bells, soil, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image:

Llewellyn Millhouse.

The lotus is nourished by the scream and grows from my body

As it blooms

Bells toll With melodious

Endless sound.

Almost subconsciously, the sound of dripping candles from across the room faded out in the

space between my ears, as I located myself in Padma. Two red fluorescent spotlights slowly

heated and illuminated the work; the saturation of psychedelic red threw scattered reflections

of the mirrors as spectres against the gallery walls. As I moved through the saturated colours

of white to red, I reference their affiliated meanings. White implies “mist, vapour and ether,

and the fantasised emptiness and silence just preceding the first sound-colours of the

discriminated world” (Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 660). It is used as the symbolic colour of

purity and is worn at weddings and baptisms; it is unblemished creation, the beginning

(Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 660). Red as a counterpoint is fierce, fiery energy. It has been

described as an experience not merely for the eye, “but something more like a bath”

(Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 660). It alerts to approaching danger, demands attention and

relates to fire and blood and all impassioned emotions: lust, exhilaration, and rage (Ronnberg

and Martin 2010, 638). The vibrancy of the coloured lights also references the technicolour

(Giusti 2013, 155) Giallo film genre, specifically Dario Argento’s 1977 film Susperia. The

hyper-lush hues of red, green and blue twisted together a psychedelic horror film that

rearranged the aesthetics and histories of witches. My body, bathed in red sat in the centre of

Padma cross-legged, enclosed by mirrored reflections. I was echoed and fragmented in the

six surrounding mirrors and again as shadows in their cast reflections on the gallery walls.

Silhouette spectres

Momentarily fracture

Through blood light

Duplicating my body

Outside the circle

Like the cast reflections

Of a lotus in rippled water.

Figure 38.1 Padma. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. Glass mirrors, brass bells, soil, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image:

Llewellyn Millhouse.

As I again began amplifying a cycle of the Ujjayi breaths to ground myself in the

performance, two bell stands framed my seated body and arched above me. They are

constructed to stand at the same height as my seated body and function as the stamen of the

lotus. I lift my arms above my head and brush the six bells that wilt from the stands gently

with my fingers. Adam Zagajewski’s Poem The Bells conjures the image of these percussive

instruments with all their attributed spiritual symbolism: “We’ll take refuge in bells, in the

swinging bells, in the peal, the air, the heart of ringing. We’ll take refuge in bells and we’ll

float over the earth in their heavy casings” (Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 672). Within

Hinduism, the resonance of a bell is celebrated as the “primordial vibration of the universe”

(Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 672). Their timbre shifts meaning within the environment they

are rung, from the sound of festivities to the sound of mourning, and inside various religions

and cultures are not regarded as “a musical instrument, but an icon of the voice of god”

(Ronnberg and Martin 2010, 672). In ritual practice their arcane resonance signify and

summon periods of devotion, to mark the beginning or end of a ceremony, to cleanse or

charge a space, and to notify a spirit/ deity of one’s presence (Ronnberg and Martin 2010,

672).

While the sounds of the bells echoed lightly in and out of each other, I modulated and

distorted my breath with looping effect pedals and created a bodily presence with low wave

frequency synthesizers. Picking up the singing bowl, I rested it in my left palm, close to my

body and struck its edge three times with the puja (wooden mallet); I then grasped the puja in

my fist and rotated it along the outside edges of the bowl. The friction of the puja against the

bowl caused heat and vibrations and rang a pulsating continuous note. With every rotation I

quicken my pace and applied more pressure causing the sound to increase and the bowl and

puja to chatter and rattle against each other. With each rotation I felt my hand slip against the

pace and intensity. As my hand and puja slid hastily off the bowl, I hit the side of it three

more times and placed it back into the earth.

Singing bowls belong to the percussive family whose behavioural physics and acoustic

sonification cause a bodily response in the listener. In the observational study Effects of

Singing Bowl Sound Meditation on Mood, Tension, and Well-being, researchers reported a

substantial decrease in participants “ anger, fatigue, and depressed mood” (Goldsby, Goldsby

and McWalters 2016, 406). Another study reported decreased blood pressure levels in

participants that operated singing bowls (Landry, 2014, 309). While widely recognised as

traditional Tibetan ritual instruments, singing bowls are thought to have originated in India

and Nepal (Brauen 2004, 240). In meditative ceremonies they are used to focus thought, set a

pace for collective chanting (Wigram et al 2002: 149), and are a tool for holistic healing

(Goldsby, Goldsby and McWalters 2014, 306). Made from copper and tin, the bowls’ timbre

or auditory colour creates a sound that is not only heard but also felt and seen.

Figure 38.2. Padma. 2018. Installation performance work. Installation documentation. Glass mirrors, brass bells, soil, with sound created through effect pedals, contact microphone, amplifier. Outer Space, Brisbane.

Image: Charlie Hillhouse.

A sound pulled from the ether

Revealing luminous light

As it waves and warbles

On the edge of obscurity

Inside a body

Awakening spirit.

Lifting my hands back above my head, I closed my eyes and applied the same method and

pace that I had applied to the singing bowl, to the bells above me. Uninterrupted and

controlled I rung the bells from the outermost bell on each of the stands to the innermost bell

by dragging my fingers along each one until my hands met in the middle, but never touched.

They pealed, rolled and rang through the speaker above the looped score of breathing. It felt

like screaming all over again, cathartic.



I rose from the bed of soil leaving the bells still in motion. I kicked up soil as I paced my

steps back through the audience, returning to the red-lit back room from whence I came. By

exploring sound as an unconditioned space, Padma attempts to create an experience of affect.

The ringing of bells against the sounds of my breath signifies a mediative body, at rest and at

peace with the screams that came before.

The red-lit mirror lotus of Padma references alterity and self-representation. Author Junot

Diaz compares the underrepresentation of cultural minorities to feeling like a monster,

You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters

don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters

don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a

monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves (Stetler 2009,

para 3).

The repetition of mirrors in Padma symbolise self-representation and the lotus, as an

empowering symbol for alterity, turns mud into sacred earth. When positioned outside,

circling the circumference of Padma, it is impossible to locate your own reflection. Rather

than positioning the mirrors as objects for the audience to place their own image within,

Padma functions only as a self-referential apparatus for myself as the performer. By

obstructing the audience’s own reflection, the mirrors deliver an image I have been denied,

and make visible what has been hidden. My body, visible and reflected offers a different

narrative to the gallery space, one that echoes my brown skin, my heritage, my ancestry and

my culture. When I am seated at its centre, the lotus provides a space to reclaim power.

Here I am,

Reflected multiplied and blooming.



As an act of embodiment, I emphasis my individual identity as a way to actively foreground

concerns on representation within the arts. As curator and writer Ryan asserts, “in the art

world, there is a deep resistance to acknowledging race and racial construction as a reality”

(Tani, Backus and Jene-Fagon 2015, para 1). By expanding the size of my body in shadows

on the gallery walls and repeating its reflections in the surrounding mirrors, my body takes up

space. As a woman of colour, the act of taking up space is as political as it is personal.

Minority groups are taught to shrink their bodies, to be silent and submissive – to be invisible

(Neligan 2000, 111). As Bell Hooks states in her book Art on my Mind: Visual Politics

(1995), “Representation is a crucial location of struggle for any exploited and oppressed

people asserting subjectivity and decolonisation of the mind” (Hooks 1995, 3).

By critically interrogating my histories and ancestry in line with the image of the witch, I

developed Padma as a way to reflect on my own representation by investigating cultural

identity. Stuart Hall names this process in this powerful statement, from the essay Cultural

Identity and Diaspora:

Cultural identity ... is a matter of "becoming" as well as "being." It belongs to the

future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending

place, time, history, and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have

histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant

transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialized past, they are

subject to the continuous “play" of history, culture and power. Far from being

grounded in a mere "recovery" of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which,

when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names

we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the

narratives of the past (1994, 225).

By situating the figure of the witch and the female scream as an embodied subjective

experience, I intend to affirm the experiences and bodies of marginalised genders, races and

sexualities. In her article, Giving an Account of Oneself (2001) Judith Butler contends, “If I

try to make myself recognizable and understandable, then I might begin with a narrative

account of my life. But this narrative will be disoriented by what is not mine, or not mine

alone” (Butler 2001, 37). My embodied experiences are not mine alone, and while I speak

from my own history I have come to understand that it is also a common history. By sharing

my performances with an audience, I communicate this subjectivity with an awareness of its

potential to evoke a shared understanding of the unique experiences of others. I believe the

raw essence of the scream performed live can conjure a communal understanding towards

experiences discriminated by gender, race and sexuality. This has been evident in the

reception of the works from its spectators. In the aftermath of the scream I have been

approached by individual members of the audience stating that their breath joined the pattern

of my breathing, or that the scream aroused an overwhelming surge of emotions, and that

they were left in tears. Many hug me after my performances, not as congratulatory action, but

as a sign of common ground; a mutually shared sensation where an embrace provides

compassion and comfort in lieu of words. I suggest that the female scream and the figure of

the witch, when embodied and situated within ritual and contemporary art practice, act as

symbols of alterity and emancipation. When these themes collide and are body-oriented, the

scream delivers a critical awareness of our own bodies and voices.

The residue of Parallel Presence and Padma remained in the gallery space until its closing

date on the 7th of November, the first day of Diwali. The dripping candles of Parallel

Presence had coated the mirror below, its reflection on the wall behind now shadowed by

thick drops and sprays of wax, which resembled moon craters and celestial constellations.

The bells of Padma now stagnant but still charged sat in the dishevelled bed of soil, marked

with my hand and footprints. The recorded sounds of the performances overlapped and

played through two speakers stationed at opposite ends of the gallery.

5.6.3 Residue

Exhibited in the smaller back gallery of Outer Space were two screens that played an edited,

recorded version of the two performances. Preceding the opening event, I had collaborated

with filmmaker Charlie Hillhouse and filmed both performances within the gallery space as

ectoplasmic evidence of the exorcized energy that was purged in the rituals. Rather than a

wide-angled documentation shot, Hillhouse moved around me as I performed. This

interpretation of the performance through film provided those who visited the residue of the

performance an altered viewing experience; one that did not attempt to replicate the live

performance, but instead emphasised the intimacy and the movement of the performance.

The screens were hung low to the ground, beckoning viewers to sit on the floor, much like

the audience who were present on the opening night. On the opposite wall, facing the screens,

were the ritual elements of the two works deconstructed and reconfigured as residual

remains. A round mirror covered in wax and embedded in the burnt remains of candles and

singed matches I had collected over the last three years of performing Parallel Presence

faced and echoed the reflection of its performance in the screen across. A mirror from

Padma, rooted in a mound of earth, faced and echoed its own performance. Here as residual

evidence, the documentation of the performance echoed its own form.

Figure 39. Conjuring Alterity Residue. 2018. Installation documentation. Two television monitors with sound, infinite loop. Soil, salt, wax, mirrors. Outer Space, Brisbane. Image: Llewellyn Millhouse.

The portal of Parallel Presence is sealed, and the bells of Padma are now static. The sound

recording of the performances, the wax covered mirror and the salt and soil mounds, now left

with my body’s impression, remained in the gallery for the exhibition’s duration. Their

vibrations left to echo residues now offered to another realm.

After the metal clangs of reverberation settle, the dripping of wax tinkles out, and the echoes

of a possessed voice perish, the residue of the ritual still remains. I have discovered a

constant hunger to search for ways to re-contextualize, re-codify and re-examine myself

through an intersectional feminist and mythological historical context. By exploring the

sound of feminism and the witch figure through bodily metaphors, superstitions and rituals, I

search for the ineffable, unobstructed voice in order to open up alternate, unconventional

histories alongside those that exist in conventional material form. My overall intentions are

for the listener to immerse themselves in the sound of the voice, the impact of the gestures,

and to find the witch in the pure essentials of sound, rhythm and sensation.

Developing a body aware of silence and sound,

Reactive and precise to unuttered intension.

Practiced but not rehearsed in ceremonial actions,

Still and grounded until visceral and primal.

The popularity of the image of the witch is not in vogue, a fad, or ‘trending’, but rather a

search for meaning. Aligning myself with the witch as a symbol for alterity created a space to

realize the potentials of my voice by examining the female scream as a sound for

intersectional feminist consciousness. Within Parallel Presence and Padma I was

subsequently able to circumvent the witches stereotypes and utilise their metaphors and

symbols as poetic, artistic and political allies. By implementing a dynamic polyphonic

process that is receptive to my research and cultural identity I did more than locate the witch

within myself, I recovered my past, and repositioned my body and voice by testing and

playing with history, culture, voice and power.

VI

The Closing Ritual: Conclusions

/

It ends with a scream

I contend that this project originally developed at a young age, when I first noticed my

differences from those around me. It began again as I suffered name calling, assaults and

trauma based on my race, gender and sexuality, and peaked in university, when the art I was

making was read through the colour of my skin, and not from the meaning I had worked hard

at achieving. My confused and primal rage was so visceral that it erupted as a scream in an

audio work. A scream that originated against the aggressive, invasive nature of patriarchy,

manifested as sound, and found solace in intersectional feminism and the figure of the witch,

prompted the research problem: what is the creative significance of the witch archetype as an

emancipatory symbol for alterity in contemporary art? I explicated the objectives of this

project framed by intersectional feminism and the figure of the witch, strategic ontological

objectives aimed at addressing this research problem. These objectives demonstrated analytic

and creative explorations that aimed to redefine and expand the current notions of the witch

through theoretical feminist thought and contemporary art practice, and subsequently called

for an examination on how this renegotiated witch figure could be used as an empowering

symbol of alterity. Furthermore, the objectives called for an analysis of embodied

performance and ritual alongside contemporary practitioners to determine how they have

used performance, ritual and alterity to generate significant creative outcomes. This research

considered what the creative strategies of ritual and embodied performance could offer and

how the female scream could function as a creative method to be utilised as a subversive,

powerful act in contemporary art practice. The research outcomes establish important

theoretical and creative developments by contributing paradigms for creative practice through

utilising the witch as a metaphor for alterity, contributing new scholarship to the history of

the witch through its renegotiation as an artistic method and through the application of

intersectional feminist thought to contemporary artistic practice.

This practice-led research project investigated how the historical potency of the image of the

witch has transformed itself from an ostracised, tortured and scorched symbol into an

allegory for emancipation and political activism in the West and conversely found

geographical limitations of its transformation in the Eastern world, with a particular focus on

the witch’s reception in India. The research project considered the representation of the

‘witch’ within legal, religious, social institutions as well as considered the operation of this

term by cultural minorities and LGTBQIA+ communities. Case studies contextualised this

research by analysing performative rituals, documented ritual residues and feminine alterity

as strategies employed by modern and contemporary artists and interprets these artists, within

the framework of this research, as witch allies. The development of the creative practice

informed by the exegetical component provides the key outcomes of this project. It has

developed by adopting ritual and ritual residues, alterity, and embodied performance within

the framework of intersectional feminist methodologies as strategic creative methods. Using

these methods, the project has endeavoured to addresses the significance of disruptive

feminist voices and reimagine intersectional identities in contemporary art practice through

the figure of the ‘witch’ as Other.

In order to understand the witch as a contemporary metaphor for alterity and as a symbol of

resistance and power, the witch was chronicled in this exegesis through its historical,

religious, sociological and political standing, through an intersectional feminist lens. As a

way to deliver an ordered archive of witch history, the exegesis arranged the literature

sequentially, beginning at the European witch trials of the 14th-17th centuries, leading to its

reinterpretation by feminist authors and scholars in the 1970’s second wave feminism, its

popularity in 1990’s media, and arriving at its entrance as a trending feminist icon today.

Historical accounts of the witch as myth were examined in 16th century literature where

women were perceived as the more impressionable and gullible sex and therefore more

sensitive to the devil’s influence. Trapped within puritan religious fanaticism, traditionally

defined feminine spaces of kitchens, nurseries and infirmaries were reconstituted as witch’s

lairs, where women were accused of performing curses, spells and enchantments on the sick

and the young (Jackson 1995, 71). In the 1970’s, second wave feminism examined the

gender-specificity of the witch trials and proclaimed them as a form of female genocide

(Daly 1978, 202). Correspondingly, the witch as a feminist political symbol arrived in the

1970’s with the W.I.T.C.H Collective protesting against patriarchal organisations and

misogynist social systems. The image of the witch as a fashionable trend emerged in the

1990’s with television and movies depicting young attractive women with supernatural

powers, however it did not take long before the witch was reenergised as a political feminist

activist once again. Today witches gather as covens on the Internet hexing rapists and

politicians, they are icons for the queer community, representing inclusive forms of

spirituality, identities, genders and sexualities. Within the framework of intersectional

feminism, the witch is reframed as a complex and multifaceted figure.

This research project however found limitations of the witch’s reclamation. In an attempt to

locate the witch within my Indian culture and heritage as an intersectional and embodied

approach, I began investigating the history and current image of the witch in India. The

research suggests that the witch’s transformation from vilified and hunter, to feminist icon

and activist is only occurring in the West. In India its history can be connected to the 1858

British invasion while its contemporary narration continues to see women accused and

murdered if marked as a witch. This presents a gap within the reclamation of the witch, a

problematic breach that continues to appropriate the witch figure while women of colour are

killed once their bodies become associated with magic. In examining the witch through its

historical, religious, sociological and political standing, through an intersectional feminist

lens, this research contributes to the field of knowledge by revealing a relationship that was

previously unrecognised among the contemporary narration of witchcraft; that its continued

celebratory whitewashing and appropriation, without acknowledging its traditions outside of

a European context, contributes contradictory consequences for women of colour. As women

of colour continue to suffer from the title ‘witch’, Western cultures continue to appropriate

and embrace it; thus highlighting the exclusionary issues within feminist thought.

Supplementing and contextualising this research were case studies that analysed performative

rituals, documented ritual residues and feminine alterity as strategies employed by modern

and contemporary artists. Designated within Performative Rituals were the works of

W.I.T.C.H, Yoko Ono, Mary Wigman and Jill Orr. Their practices were studied through their

use of embodied ritual performance, which saw communities used as covens within the

performative activism of W.I.T.C.H, the seething textural and vocal performative procedures

of Yoko Ono’s sound practice, the embodied witch possession of Mary Wigman in her avant-

garde dance and the precise ritual procedures of Jill Orr’s performances, whose sympathetic,

vulnerable and exposed performing body, critiques injustices and inequality produced by

colonial and patriarchal systems. In Documented Ritual Residue the aftermath of performance

is considered by observing how embodied ritual can conceivably be captured in the objects

and still images that document the rituals of Janine Antoni, Ana Mendieta, and Mary Beth

Edelson. Janine Antoni’s bodily imprints and energies linger in gallery spaces, Ana

Mendieta’s limbs stain walls, hollow out earth and exist eternally within a captured image,

and Mary Beth Edelson’s photographs seize and seal the performed and personified souls of

archetypal Goddesses. Artists Catherine Opie, Qasim Riza Shaheen, Baseera Khan, and

collaborative duo Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek represent artists who

employ defiant strategies of ‘feminine alterity’, in order to challenge Otherness and explore

sexuality, gender, culture and religion. Each artist acknowledges that in contemporary culture

utilising socially constructed ideas of femininity, sexuality, gender and culture are strategic

manoeuvres developed to overcome cultural normative hierarchies and their limitations in

order to create a new language in art based on intersectional feminism. These queer artists

and artists of colour are symbols of empowered and embodied alterity whose strength and

force is recognised within their individual practices. Catherine Opie’s photographs share a

queer reworking of the concepts of feminine discourse while Muslim artist Qasim Riza

Shaheen’s delicate dolls explore polymorphous gender identity. Baseera Khan, a queer

femme South Asian American artist, investigates identity, spirituality and culture through

performance, sculpture and installation works and South American artist Juan Jose Barboza-

Gubo and his American collaborator Andrew Mroczek create portraits of Peru’s female

transgender community by utilising traditional Catholic religious iconography. Each of these

artists and their accompanying practices informed the conceptual approaches of my creative

project. This contextual analysis has contributed to feminist thought by critically elaborating

on understandings of how embodied performance, ritual residue and alterity can be translated

into contemporary intersectional feminist art practice.

The PhD exegesis and creative component were framed within the research fields of practice-

led enquiry and intersectional feminist methodologies. These methodologies supported a

responsive and critical engagement with the strategies of embodied performance, ritual,

breathing and screaming, and self-reflective writing. Using feminist methodology and

practice-led research, the practical component adopted a considered poetic and self-reflective

account of the works developed throughout the project. The practice was first underscored by

the role of the disembodied or acousmatic voice as a mode used to untie the voice from the

body, elevating the voice as an authoritative and formidable sound. By reconsidering this

authoritative acousmatic voice, I re-situated my body in ritual and embodied performance as

a way to be seen and heard. This embodied approach saw my own subjective position placed

in the centre of the performance rituals. It is from this site of embodied performance that my

case for the transgressive female scream and the image of witch as a powerful symbol of

alterity were established. While discussing iterative performance I submit that the scream

turned into a dominant sound that not even I could control, resulting in a break from the

scream for a year of the project. Recuperative meditative performance replaced the scream as

a way to heal and connect further with my body and culture. My yogi mother supported me

with meditation and yoga lessons, which led to our collaboration Ocean Between Us. The

outcomes of the work left me searching further for my ancestral voice. I located it during my

exhibition Conjuring Alterity when I returned to the scream after a year’s hiatus and

performed Parallel Presence, and sat within its resonating aftermath in Padma. Within the

creative practice I recovered my past, repositioned my body and located my voice. Here the

transgressive scream and the recuperative breath revealed themselves as compatible positions

that violate perceived boundaries of the female body and voice and restore and heal the

performing body and mind. New creative approaches have been established within the

overlaps and interchanges that occurred when embodied performance, ritual, residue,

screaming, breathing and the figure of the witch were used as ripe materials and strategies for

generating practice outcomes.

By addressing how the cultural and creative significance of the witch archetype can be

utilised as an emancipatory symbol for alterity in contemporary art, I have investigated

embodied performance rituals, the aftermath of rituals and their residues, and alterity through

my own body’s outward markers as a woman of colour, that I hid and masked but learnt to

scream into life. I made art that included my body and my voice to disrupt my erasure from

the art world, from media, from feminist discourse and from history. This research has been

undertaken by investigating historical, sociological, religious and political investigations of

the witch through an intersectional feminist lens. Embodied performance and self-

actualisation through voiced ritual was also approached through intersectional feminist

discourse.

The research combined practice methods, research, and histories/discourses and brought

these together through the ritual acts of breathing, screaming and writing. This research has

informed the conceptual approaches of my creative studio project. The assimilation of the

witch into a feminist metaphor sees the witch outside of their medieval history and instead as

a figure that continues to be relatable and rebellious, here the witch sits alongside artists that

are unapologetically political, femme, and Othered. My creative practice has therefore

critically elaborated on new understandings of how alterity and the figure of the witch can be

translated into contemporary intersectional feminist art practice through my own ritualised

strategies. The significance of my topic resides within the kinds of dialogues that are

established when the themes of my body as a queer woman of colour, my research into the

mythologies surrounding the witch figure, the female scream, and intersectional feminism

traverse through not only the written exegesis but also the outcomes of my creative practice.

Consequently, the originality and contribution to the field of knowledge demonstrates itself

within visual and oral representation, through the use of embodied performance and ritual as

creative tactics. I offer the female scream and the figure of the witch, when embodied and

situated within ritual and contemporary art practice, as symbols of alterity and emancipation,

and impress upon the readers of this exegesis, and those that bear witness to the scream, to

consider not only breathing or writing themselves into existence but to scream as a crucial

transition towards self-actualisation.

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Appendix Appendix A. Breath Hovering Beneath the Base. 2016. Sound Recording. Cut Thumb ARI, Brisbane: https://vimeo.com/326019326. Appendix B. Body of Voice. 2017. Video Documentation. Metro Arts, Brisbane: https://vimeo.com/231991077. Appendix C. Parallel Presence. 2016. Video Documentation. First Draft Gallery, Sydney: https://vimeo.com/325999033. Appendix D. Parallel Presence. 2016. Video Documentation. Seventh Gallery, Melbourne: https://vimeo.com/326015402. Appendix E. Parallel Presence. 2017. Video Documentation. The Walls Art Space, Gold Coast: https://vimeo.com/326043545. Appendix F. Ocean Between Us. 2018. Sound Recording. Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane: https://vimeo.com/326024448. Appendix G. Parallel Presence. 2018. Performance Residue. Outer Space, Brisbane: https://vimeo.com/322725633. Appendix H. Padma. 2018. Performance Residue. Outer Space, Brisbane: https://vimeo.com/322710316.

conjuring alterity: refiguring the witch and the …...women (purkiss 1996, 17). this creative...

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