As part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2021 performance artist Hattie Godfrey will present her most challenging piece of work to date, a 36 hour performance in Belfast City Centre. It will be open to the public from Thursday 2nd- Saturday 5th September from 8pm-6am.
Whilst weekend revellers are heading to socialise with friends in the bustling Cathedral Quarter, they are invited to stop and take a few moments of reflection and engage with the artist's work in the new Flax Project Space on North Street. Hattie’s work will actually be the first piece of work displayed in this space.
Godfrey’s work questions how, both individually and collectively, we conceptualize and engage with illness. She is particularly interested in the role of institutions in causing, caring for and curing physical and psychological conditions.
Godfrey states “Both the body and the institution are at their most unruly and unstable after sundown. The cover of night creates a hunting ground filled with stale, heavy-hanging time.”
Each act of her most recent work, Put Into Flight begins at sundown and eases at sunrise. The work casts illness as a form of supervisory staff, a single authority that oversees work, play and sleep. Consisting of three acts over three consecutive nights, this 36-hour performance offers a window into the artist’s fluctuating relationship with illness. We see as she denies its existence, surrenders to its power and attempts to escape its confinement. Chase, Capture, Escape.
The opportunity to see such ground-breaking work up close and personal is very rare in Belfast City Centre, we encourage everyone to grasp this one-off opportunity to visit the piece, make your own reflections and reactions and then revisit to see if there has been any further developments which may open your eyes and take your breath away.
