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Inbetween Time 2006

february 1-5 2006


 Da Contents H2

February 3 2006
Duncan Speakman: Echo Location
Osunwunmi

Gob Squad: Managing fear
Winnie Love

Gob Squad: What does it mean to be a Vampire?
Niki Russell at the Gob Squad lecture

John Gillies: A Geography of Longing and Belonging
Marie-Anne Mancio

John Gillies: Old land, new testament
Ruth Holdsworth

Rosie Dennis: One from the heart
Winnie Love in the Rosie Dennis loop

Uninvited Guests: The art of wounding
Marie-Anne Mancio faces up to Univited Guests

February 2 2006
AC Dickson: Rising up to the challenge of his rivals
Niki Russell on eBay selling as performance

Bodies in Flight: And the word was made flesh
Osunwunmi

Carolyn Wright: Conversational miscues
When Winnie Love met Carolyn Wright

Carolyn Wright: Pleased to meet you, again
Niki Russell

David Weber-Krebs: Beyond waiting
Winnie Love

David Weber-Krebs: More than it says it is…
Ruth Holdsworth

David Weber-Krebs: Risk realised
Virginia Baxter

 

Paul Hurley: Oyster romance

Winnie Love



I have the taste of the sea in me.

Oysters are like sex. My first time, today, was special. As it should be.

Mine was a memorable introduction to an iconic sensual experience. I’ll try to recall the details, I’ll tell how it was for me.

Framed by the artist Paul Hurley, the event occurred away from the public gaze. In a darkened room an elegant dinner table was laid with a simple, formal setting for each of us: a linen napkin, silver fish knife and fork, lemons, Tabasco, some flowers. We were offered a glass of champagne and introduced to the subject in question.

Oysters, Hurley tells us, have been around for 200 million years. The species he has obtained is Crassostra Gigas from Wexford in Ireland. Information is delivered, like the amount of water to pass through an oyster in a day—an Olympic swimming pool full—and an explanation of the craft of opening the shell. A practical demonstration was accompanied by a poem by Robin Robertson.

Bandage your hand against the bladed shell
Work your blade well into the slot
(imagine a paint scraper at a rusted rim)
and prise the lid off keeping the juices in

We were nearly at the crucial point, the moment where I needed to trust that I would swallow and not gag. The artist, himself a recent initiate, said he liked to chew a couple of times before swallowing.

I picked out mine from the proffered tray, a beauty.

Before the abductor muscle that holds the oyster to its shell was severed, we studied the anatomy closely. I pondered the dualities that had stimulated the artist to undertake this investigation. The hard, solid permanence of the shell—piles of them, some 200 years old are still to be found—contrasts with the short-lived liquid flesh. I thought also of the immediate association oysters have with sex and of what Paul Hurley told us of their curious transsexual behaviour.

The flesh released from the shell was mine and it was, as promised, like eating the sea, and then I had another, this time spiked with tabasco, and then another wrapped in bacon, an Angel on Horseback. I wanted the experience but didn’t really want it witnessed; I covered my head as I’ve seen diners do in Europe when eating songbirds. Was this abjection, this giving up of my previous state of oyster virginity in such a formal, solemn manner?

The tone of the occasion was relaxed, almost informal. We were inhabiting the appropriate space, a special dinner with all the sensory requirements: the immaculately dressed maître d’, the best champagne, quality of linen. We inhabited it as curious sightseers or anthropologists, slightly outside the experience.

I intend to repeat the experience one day and, when I do, I’ll be relaxed and enjoy it, and I’ll thank Paul Hurley and his subtle, gentle artistry for showing me how.


Swallow (Part 1), Paul Hurley, Arnolfini Meeting Room, Feb 4

© Winnie Love; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]

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