REBECCA JAGOE
Untitled
09.05.19

KELDER invited Rebecca Jagoe to respond to Matthew Verdon’s  project, Vestigial Traits and Evolutionary Spandrels.  Taking the form of a performative reading, Jagoe offered a personal account of circulatory systems, pharmaceuticals and the body.

For the performance, Jagoe used their historic abuse of laxatives to consider both the dynamic of personal participation in a global hydro-commons, and the use of plant-derived materials in contemporary Western medicine as a form of salvage accumulation. Looking at oedema (fluid retention) and dehydration associated with overuse of sennosides (derived from Cassia), the performance discussed their ways of attempting to parse their body of liquid as a refusal of watery embodiment that parallels both the impossible aim of closed systems of production, and a humanist, individualistic yearning for discreteness and isolation. The response to Verdon’s work forms part of a wider body of research into the opacity and unknowability of bodily systems, and the medicinal use of plants as a vector into the body.

The performance will start at 19.00 and entry is free. We have very limited space and ask that you please reserve your space via email to studio@kelderprojects.com