Pilgrimage to the Site of Waste Windows | A Memorial Service

Pilgrimage to the Site of Waste Windows - A Memorial Service | Brydee Rood in collaboration with the Schöppingen Firemen's Band | Site: Daldrup Kunststoffverabeitung Schöppingen during the KWW Artist Residency, Art Science Economy Fellowship with Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen.

During the Arts Science Economy Residency with Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen I held a memorial service for waste plastic PVC windows involving a pilgrimage to the local factory site of waste PVC windows and a collaboration with the town’s Firemen’s Band. The sound installation and performance was situated directly within the factory bounds both indoors and outside amongst the mountainous piles of waste windows; broken, smashed and discarded PVC frames, heaped and strewn, peppered with glass, metal bits, foam oddities formed a new landscape within the existing semi industrial semi rural surrounds. Like a pilgrimage to a sacred land or temple, the act of bringing an audience to this site of collected waste became an integral part of the work. The performance was an experimental funeral composition, hinting at life cycles and reincarnation, a serenade to the windows which frame our existence; in architecture, such common things - we look out of windows everyday, separating us from the outdoors - yet here the retired windows accumulated, put out to pasture, forming a bizarre material landscape.

Images: Brydee Rood 2015

A Warm Breeze Blowing

A Warm Breeze Blowing | Brydee Rood 2015 | Site Specific Performance and Sound Installation

A TIDELINES project curated by Jaenine Parkinson in tandem with Waterfront Auckland, The Arts Foundation - Boosted NZ, Silo Park. Rood performed the work in collaboration with Tamashii Taiko Drummers. The performance of A Warm Breeze Blowing unfolded on on a stepped terrace, intersecting where land meets sea. The essential action of dumping a sacred offering of 4tonnes of melting ice from Sanfords the local seaside fish market, onto the sea steps to greet the rising tide was a ritual act of global cooling. 

Link: A Warm Breeze Blowing published on 1MillionWomen Climate Change Action

Photographer: Joanna Wright | Images: Brydee Rood 2015

River Flag

River Flag | Brydee Rood 2015 | Site-specific Performance | Peepal Tree Art Project - Healing Hills Art Residency Morni Hills Haryana India | Materials: Bamboo Thermal Survival Blankets, Jai Mate Di Prayer Flags, Tape, Cotton

Photographers: [above] Satadru Sovan [below] Sandeep Sahdev

Rood harnessed energy, carrying a handmade 6meter bamboo flag cut from gold and silver foil emergency survival blankets, tracing a line of quickening pace through the wheat-fields of Badisher Valley in Morni Hills. River Flag melded into a series of a ritual flag-bearing movements intersecting the point where land meets the flow of the Ghaggar River atop an outstanding rock where lies a small Khera(a temple). Rood struck a balance of power shifting the fluid sheet of the metallic flag in mesmerizing formations adorned in a poncho hewn from local Punjabi Jai Mata Di prayer flags. Jai Mata Di is an ancient hail to the mother of the universe, evoked in Roods performance through her considered use of materials channelling a visual prayer for the survival and wellbeing of the rivers of Mother Earth. River Flag slowed as Rood took pause on the Khera, kneeling steadfast in a firm breeze connecting water, rock and wind.

From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession

From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession | Brydee Rood and Chiman Dangi 2015 | Site-specific Performance and Video Project at Matheran Green Festival Maharashtra India

The Matheran Waste Cart Procession was created as a direct response to the environs of Matheran - meaning "forest on the forehead" an eco sensitive Bombay Hill station “discovered by Hugh Poyntz Malet, the then district collector of Thane district in May 1850. Today Matheran is a very curious place, without modes of popular transport cars, bikes, busses... the tradition of riding by horseback, hand pulled cart or walking prevails and impacts positively on daily life, an inviting lush destination popular with visitors. On the other hand - the impacts and residues of human waste are evident throughout the delicate habitat. Plummeting breath taking views into Matheran’s green valleys are belied by accumulated carpets of thrown plastic bottles, food packets, snack plates... The evidence of a contemporary human presence carelessly left in the wake of their collective daily life. From Market to Dumping Ground - Matheran Waste Cart Procession spurred from the context of life in Matheran Hills, a performance action, which involved high-jacking a working rubbish collection cart, and honouring its workers and the process of waste collection by unfolding a series of a sacred rituals throughout the procession from the main market place to the Matheran Dumping Ground. We created garments from silver plates, leaf plates and recycled fabrics; we decorated Jharoo with gold and silver foils and ribbons, and used them like warrior’s arms or ceremonial staffs. Our heads were adorned with a crowning 3rd eye for nature something befitting the forest on the forehead and empowering the inner eco- warrior and garbage goddess queen.

Images Brydee Rood and Chiman Dangi 2015

Ikebana Bins

Ikebana Bins | Brydee Rood 2015 | Headland Sculpture on the Gulf Waiheke Island New Zealand | Materials: Assorted Native Flora, Soil, Wheelie Bins - Waste Management Waiheke Island, Gold and Silver Leaf | Text: Too many times my ears have mourned the hateful scream of neighbours’ wielding chainsaws and when questioned - dropping comments like - ‘rubbish trees’ and ‘wasted space’ to describe an area of overgrown garden where natives and weeds have tangled up and taken over a patch of land. As a response to the ‘clearing’ without consideration for, or knowledge of native species or otherwise, of such suburban landscapes, Ikebana Bins is an eco-sensitive series of seven portable planters. Focusing on living native flora arrangements and using common wheelie bins as an earth vessel and inspired by giant Ikebana - a contemporary genre of Ikebana - Japanese floral arrangement and guided by the principle that Ikebana is a disciplined art form in which nature and humanity are brought together. Jiyuka Ikebana is a free creative design and every material can be used. In opposition to the painful screech of chainsaws, contemplative silence is said to be significant in achieving a spiritual ikebana experience.

Image: Brydee Rood 2015