Festival Commission Event 2022
Assia Ghendir and Puer Deorum
The benevolent refraction of a wave passing through
Assia Ghendir and Puer Deorum
The benevolent refraction of a wave passing through
2022
Durational performance and multimedia installation
‘the benevolent refraction of a wave passing through’ is a collaboration between Assia Ghendir and Puer Deorum. The work takes the form of a durational performance on the busy thoroughfare of Margaret MacMillan Park in Deptford between 12:30 – 3:30pm on 23 September 2022. On view in Deptford Lounge is a pre-performance installation set to be activated during the live performance .
Considering bodies as vessels for holding both oneself and others, the performance uses rosemary as a core material for its properties as a memory aid and the resemblance of its needles to those used in acupuncture and the ancient Islamic practice of Fakir – based on devotional endurance. Ghendir and Puer Deorum’s performance is an offering from vessel to vessel; healing through self-reflection, meditative fakir and plant medicine.
The benevolent refraction of a wave passing through is a Deptford X Commission
A pre-performance installation will be on view at Deptford Lounge from the 16 September.
Please book your free Eventbrite ticket here.
Assia Ghendir is an artist and somatic healing practitioner working with the sonic and soma. Their largely noninstitutional practice is research-driven and exists at the intersection of geographic and geometric movements within ancestry, grief, otherness, prayer and queerness. Ghendir uses movement, voice, devotional sound and breathwork. Their vocal work is rooted in ancient Amazigh lament practices and North-African rites of passage serving as a way to love, heal and breathe.
Puer Deorum’s approach to art archives contrived halcyons, utopian scenarios, contexts that cannot be contextualised, developing sequences of surreal mysticism and fantastical ambience ~ parallel to feelings of longing. Working primarily with performance, costume, and sculpture, narrating surreal paracosms with harmonious references and symbology through oral histories and research on anthropology intrinsic to folk culture/art from South Asia.
Image credit: Assia Ghendir and Puer Deorum, The benevolent refraction of a wave passing through, Deptford X 2022. Photos by Corey Bartle-Sanderson & Nelta Kasparian.
