THIS is a new series from the desk of AVM.
Betwixt the composting concept of THE PEEL, and circuitous loop of ROUNDABOUT. THIS will focus on a single thing.
A scrap, object, memory, sensation - a link between that of old and felt anew. THIS, dear reader is for you.
#1 ATE SHIT, DIDN’T DIE.
There is a line by James Baldwin, he says simply that no one asked him to be a writer. It resonates. No one asked me to make a short film to tie together the triptych at the heart of AVM.
THIS is not just a woman lying on her back with a mouthful of dirt. Or, even, a metaphor for women as the incubators of society, culture, life. But a moving image piece, in an art gallery, in the capital city of a country in Eastern Europe. THIS and also, that. Seems like a good metaphor for having been through something and - despite all odds and nods to the contrary - come out the other side.
What’s it like to walk into a room in an art gallery and see the reference that you had referred to without knowing it existed? Uncanny, affirming, of note. To be an artist is to be a borrower. Those who do successfully have the power of transmutation too - they are able to wash an existent thing with their own ‘ness.
I don’t know the name of the piece, nor its artist, but I can describe it. Just over a minute long, the film rests on the image of a person with a shaved head lying down. She appears to be topless, but only her shoulders are showing. After some moments, a hand appears, holding a trowel. The trowel is loaded with earth, which is deposited into her open mouth. When full, the hand recedes, and the original shot is established, this time with her mouth crowded by earth. The hand reappears, this time carrying a small plant in bloom. This plant, perhaps a pansy, or a primula, is placed in the open mouth, gently, so as to establish it amongst the soil, but not (one would imagine) to force any down the throat.
Visual art works its way like a bird’s beak on a tree, like damp through a window left open for drying linens, and forgotten about. Something is cracked on initial impact, and access gained. It may not be until a second viewing, or several weeks later, that we find ourselves in contact with its effect.
Concepts in their early stages are fragile things. It matters who we share our ideas with, and how they are received. In the process of making the film which would become AVM: The Film, no one asked me shit. Specifically, no one asked what I was doing and why I wanted to put it in my mouth. Not human, not animal shit, but the shit of the natural world - peat-free compost. At AVM, we are dealing with the elements. Earth, wind, fire. Sky, sea, soil.
Up on the hill behind Brighton’s racecourse, outside an allotment famous for its bountiful produce and proximity to a graveyard (the two are linked, much like Earth Wind & Fire with the month of September), I shoved a huge fistful of soil into my mouth.
Moist, comforting, a hint at another, subterranean life. As a student in Tallinn, Estonia, I kept an array of houseplants on a perennially sunny windowsill. In the morning, when I remembered, I would fill a vase with water and give them a drink. It became habit that I would fill up a glass for myself too, taking great pleasure in saying some for me, some for you, as I made my way along the sill.
A number of years span between the soil shot, my sill song, and the discovery of the planting piece described above. Illness, death, lust, loss and discovery have lit the path with varying wattage. Done good, been bad, grown all the while. I ate shit, I didn’t die.
THIS IS
A RADIO STATION, spinning Ghanaian gems all day long
AN ESSAY about known grump E.M Cioran, by Rob Doyle
A SONG FOR MONDAY MORNING, don’t talk to me before my etc etc
A DOCUMENTARY to get you ready. We’re going back to the club.