Performance to camera and incidental viewers/participants on Dumgoyne Hill /Scotland. April – May 2004.
I have a friend called Donnie Munro Graham. He is a poet and engineer and every year on his birthday he climbs to the top of his favourite hill and waves the saltire attached to a walking stick. His work colleagues watch his progress through a telescope 15 miles away in Glasgow.
Donnie’s simple act perfectly encapsulated many of the ideas I had been seeking to develop through my work.
Stills from Bearing Witness film – super 8The city of banners, Gran Pavese, lying on the periphery of the empire, is continually swaying in and out of balance: swinging between coming and going, between inertia and movement. It is a city of celebration, but a strange celebration that is timed to a rhythm of exuberant joy at arrival and mournful sorrow at departure. Welcome and farewell alternate against a background of colourful flags.
Gran Pavese, 50 flags for 50 artists.
My past lies in several locations and whilst I am proud of Scotland, I would be equally moved by hoisting the Lebanese flag. I am always saying hello and goodbye to people that I love and so I climbed Dumgoyne everyday for one week with a 20ft flagpole on my back. Each day I raised a flag that was significant for me and kissed the ground.
I could take the pole to the summit but I could not raise it by myself. The public, by means of posters and a newspaper article, were invited to join me in my climb to the summit. The performance began everyday at Dumgoyne distillery. The performance opened up a space of dialogue at the summit, by chance once more bringing together lost friends and strangers through shared endeavour.
In a reversal of roles, I invited Donnie to watch my progress up the hill. Donnie watched my ascent through an astronomical telescope – everything being inverted! Below is the list of observations that he wrote after his viewing. The poem was then recorded and played on head phones along with the 20minute super 8 film , projected on a floating screen as the flag pole lay before it.
Thoughts Through A Telescope Focused on Dumgoyne and Ruth Macdougall
28.3.04
First Thought – What the hell am I doing here?
(Feigning Venom)
Further thoughts – It’s not so bad, it’s not raining and I’m getting
The hang of this.
I just have to remember that everything is inverted
And that which lies to the left, still lies to the left.
On losing bearings, I have learned to take my eye
From the lens, see for myself, and re align,
Simple as that.
Where the hell is she?
Since first I saw her, it has pleased me to
See her again.
Yet here, without her in my sight, I am hurting,
I am hurting badly, especially my spine.
Tripods are not my thing.
Is this a set up for my own discomfort?
If this is Art then I’m a Dutch man!
Again I scan from the summit, down past
The ridges, out to the outcrops of rock
And the tree line.
Then she is there, in view, at last espied,
With her mother and her flag staff,
Unless of course there is another on that hill,
With another and a flag staff.
A saltire on a walking stick
Is not Macdougall’s way
Her standards will be higher,
By twenty feet I’d say!
Along the last ridge I keep my eye on her.
She is there! On the summit.
(weel done cutty sark!)
There are a number of souls nearer heaven
Today. I see the flag staff raised and secure
She hammers pegs in with such grace , (Ahmen)
Her father arrives beside me just as the
Saltire climbs, fankles unfurls and flaps
Free. We share the lens and view the
Scene, proudly perplexed
(everything being inverted)
In the past I have not had many thoughts
About inverted things, apart from Bats
Of course. The ones who go to sleep
Inverted in the branches of trees.
To my amusement they would drop off
Yet still hang on.
Well that’s enough time at the telescope.
Last thought -Tis a Woman’s art indeed
That turns a man’s world upside down.