Roanna Mitchell: Charing Cross Station Performance
Saturday 10th May 2014, beginning 11.55am, London Charing Cross Station
VAD nurse Clarice Spratling spent her last night before leaving for France at the Charing Cross Hotel, in Charing Cross station.
The performance is placed at the central, balancing point of the station. The stillness at the centre of the concourse heightens the awareness of the movement that surrounds it, and invites the eye to roam the space, to notice with fresh eyes the station itself, and the windows of the Charing Cross Hotel which still face onto the concourse.
This space is filled with the ghosts of journeys past, constantly growing in number, including Clarice’s journey in 1915, and your own journey today. Using the folding of pillowcases as a starting point, the movement explores the way in which domestic actions would soon become the routine of the war effort.
The everyday starts to disintegrate, and sleep is already troubled by a hint of the nightmares to come. Pillowcases, laid out on earth from Clarice’s ancestral home, speak of her own final night on home soil, and of the many whom she will help lay to rest across the channel.
Image: Photolounge.co.uk [click for website]
Roanna Mitchell has been developing the movement aspect of Resting Place with performance artist, Niamh Lyman-Cotter. Charing Cross will be the second performance installation piece of eight, taking place over 2 years from 2014 - 2016
