(2001) object & performance (head shave): root; human hair & cloth, 430 x 43 x 40 cm
tree; white board, fish bones, seaweed & Korean traditional rubber shoes, 243 x 244 cm
The Root (2001), performance (head shave) at Wilson Road car park, Camberwell College, London
For the fish bones I made several trips to food halls of West End department stores at the end of opening hours where I was given a generous number of fish and bones. A friend of mine was delighted to help me boil them in her kitchen and for days I sat with her family cleaning off the remaining flesh, and eating nice fish soup. After a while my friend’s landlady called her to say that that the other tenants of the house were complaining about the smell – but my mission was completed.
Meanwhile, the hairdressers carried on styling their customers while I scooped up the hair from the ground around them, putting it in plastic bags.
I had practiced the act of shaving my head in advance, handling the shaving tool in the air above my head before the actual performance. With the audience waiting I sat down in front of the tree that I had made, then I wanted to shave a big bold stroke through the middle of my hair. What I didn’t anticipate was that it didn’t go as smoothly as I had expected. Nevertheless, I did manage to show ‘my root’.
