Helen Kirwan performances continue with breaking vessels

The fifth performance in Helen Kirwan’s new series of online events broadcast live to a global audience is coming this Friday. As an artist in residence with the Cyprus Academy of Arts Residency Programme, Kirwan has created the Grief-Work performances – a direct response to the poignancy of the global pandemic and the drastic changes it has brought with it.

With her fifth performance of Grief-Work titled Breaking the Vessels, Kirwan proposes to mark and to fracture numerous clay pots. Vessels whether especially dedicated to the deceased or as part of other rites have featured in funeral and burial practices of many cultures since the remotest antiquity. Often, they were used to contain offerings of nourishment to be buried with the dead to assist his or her journey to the afterlife. The fracturing or breaking of vessels was also seen as an ancient practice of ritually ‘killing’ plates as a means of dealing with loss on mourning occasions.

During her performance this Friday, viewers will again become immersed in a compelling, absorbing experience as they watch these seemingly infinite repetitions. Kirwan regards these repetitive tasks and absurd processes as metaphors for the mourning process and as a medium for the metaphorical construction of memory.

The first performance in the Grief-Work series; Chapter One, Pomegranate, Chapter Two, The Cypress Tree, Chapter Three, Sifting the Flour and Chapter Four, Rending the Cloth are now available to view on the website performanceartinthevirtual.com.

Breaking the Vessels

Online performance by artist Helen Kirwan, artist in residence with the Cyprus Academy of Arts Residency Programme. April 23. 8pm Cyprus time. performanceartinthevirtual.com