Moving With / Through / Away From Grief
A decade of works on grief
Hello,
As you will have gathered from the title, this post talks about grief and loss. If it doesn’t feel good for you to read about these themes, please do skip this post.
Go gently,
Chloë x
Recently it was the 10 year anniversary of my brother’s death. As is often said with grief, time becomes non-linear; it feels both perfectly comprehensible, and totally unbelievable, that a whole decade has gone by.
Josh’s death not only changed who I am as a person, but has also had a profound effect on my work as an artist. Sometimes I wonder what sort of work I would have made had grief not entered my life, but of course it’s impossible to know. For the past 10 years grief and loss and all that it brings with it, has been all that I’ve been able to focus on creatively. It has filled my mind, my body and often consumed my being.
Now, things have gently shifted and I find myself able to ‘move on’ creatively. I am beginning to work on new projects, exploring relationships between people and place, bodies and landscapes. As I start work on those, I’m also making space to reflect and look back.
Below is a dive into my archive, exploring the past decade’s works on grief.
In March 2015 I received an Arts Council England (ACE) grant to create ‘Tidal’; an intergenerational dance piece for Spittal promenade and beach here in Berwick. I was elated; I’d been dreaming up the project for years, had moved back home a year earlier to start working on it, and it was my first ever big grant. Back then the decision letter from ACE would come in the post, and I remember literally jumping up and down with excitement when I opened it.
A couple of weeks later came the death of my brother, very close to the intended site of the performance. Friends and colleagues encouraged me to cancel the project, but I couldn’t bear to let go of it, and I needed something to focus on. So onwards I went, running rehearsals with 34 local children and adults, choreographing material, sourcing costumes and managing the budget.
I was keen to remind people that this performance was already in the planning before Josh’s death, and I was determined to keep the celebratory nature of the work, especially as I was working with a community cast that included lots of children, but of course my own grief underpinned the whole project.
The performance was watched by an audience of 600, over 2 days, and unsurprisingly brought most of those watching to tears. Looking back I find it hard to believe that I almost single-handedly brought the project to life whilst in the depths of grief, but I’m so proud that I managed to make it happen.
In October 2016 I presented ‘Disperse’ at SPILL Festival of Performance in Ipswich. A 2-day durational and participatory work, festival goers and passers-by were invited to join me within a circle of pestles and mortars, select a piece of wood and begin to smash it. Participants were welcome to sit in silence, or have conversations on grief and loss. At regular intervals a singer would join the circle, and sing a lament for the dead. At the end of the 2 days, the wood was burnt, in a ritual of disappearing and loss.
I had many conversations on death and grief, and began to understand the importance of creating space for people to share their experiences.
The photo above was taken after a long and tender conversation on grief and a much needed hug for both of us.
Jassy Earl (pictured above) and I met at that 2016 SPILL Festival, where we spent probably no more than a few hours together, before returning to our respective homes in Glasgow and Bristol. When her Dad died a few months later however she got in touch. Finding solace and connection in our shared, although different, experiences of grief in our 20s, we slowly became friends.
When I moved back up north in 2018, Jassy got in touch to ask if I’d like to make a show with her, and eventually that became ‘Holding It Together’; a highly visual and intimate performance work. Through choreography and text, and a large mass of bubblewrap, the performance asks what does grief look and feel like?
Post-performance audiences members were invited to stay in the space, where a specialist grief counsellor was present, to allow time to reflect on the work and any emotions it may have brought up.
In 2022, as part of ‘This Endless Sea’ (more on that project below), I started a monthly Grief Café in Berwick. I planned to run 6 sessions in total, but in the end the Café ran for over 2 years. I’m not a therapist, and was always keen to stress that the space wasn’t group therapy, instead providing a friendly and welcoming place for people to share experiences of grief, or simply sit and listen.
The Berwick Grief Café inspired a group of people to start running them in the Scottish Borders, and there’s now a whole network across Scotland which is heartwarming to see.
‘This Endless Sea’ is my most recent work on grief, and also my first installation work. Inside a purpose-built coastal shelter is a six-screen film exploring a relationship between grief, the body and the sea. The shelter is looked after by a team of ‘hut keepers’ who are there to look after audiences and have conversations on grief.
Audiences watch the film either on their own or with someone they know, giving an intimate space to explore their own relationship to grief and the sea.
The installation was made in collaboration with a team of brilliant artists and has been shown across the UK. I hope it will continue to be shown for many years to come, on beaches, at art festivals and hopefully even in galleries.
Thanks for coming along on this look back with me. You can see more photos from each of these projects on my website.
With love,
Chloë x
Very proud friend moment 💚💚💚