nurture of slow
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‘explore themes of vulnerability and strength, attention, and spaciousness for reflection, through an altered state of slowness as therapeutic process. When we allow ourselves to truly slow, we sense the world and ourselves in it, differently – in a more attuned and caring way. In attempting to embody slowness, processes, materiality and imagination have space to evolve. The Japanese have a philosophy called ‘Yutori’ which means having spaciousness (of mind) to absorb life in its fullness – it’s an ongoing practice and challenge.’
This spaciousness, a meditative flow state, expands through the paintings at various scale. Demanding our attention, large pieces echo skies, imagination, the darkness of closed eyes and the intruding ‘noise’. While the caesuras*, quietly inhabit the same space, noticed when we are more aware and curious. All pieces embrace subtle nuances, while capturing the voice of Penny’s journalling through text, slowly and deliberately typed.
Yin yoga (long held poses) is a practice which has shifted how Penny sees the world. Attuning more closely to environments, noticing the auditory presence, she physically shifts body position to corpse pose (shavasana**). It invokes deep listening as a key process, calming her ‘manic mind’, demonstrated in the moving image work, and through gentle marks – like musical scores - within the paintings.
‘When you lie down you sense the world differently – you are grounded with the earth, relieving pressures of being upright, shifting your sensory perspective and being vulnerable and open. A beetle may crawl over you, a sound may be crisper, a bird might fly through the sky as you gaze at clouds.’
The corpse pose photographs document these moments, never planned, of experiencing the world with fresh attention – not ‘dead’ at all but awakened.
In her film work, Penny plays with simultaneous temporalities; how time is structured and yet fluid in how we perceive it. How is time moving if we sit still on a moving train, or if our mind processes as we sleep? Pigeons recur; their rhythmic call a reminder to slow, whilst symbolically holding the same low status as slowness – undervalued.
Penny’s work asks us how we connect to ourselves and our world though the pause encouraging us to sit in the ‘rest histories’ as an act of self-care and reflection.
‘Carl Jung defines individuation as ‘coming to self-realisation’ a growth of understanding and accepting ourselves. How can we hear our unconscious when always in a rush?’
Slowness is not a passive state – there can be choice in taking our time; where imagination, dreams, connection and restorative processes develop. We live in a world which encourages us to rush and produce. Penny’s work explores attunement to senses that awaken a different awareness, a somatic response resulting in changed state of being – even if momentarily, as a form of resistance.
*caesura: a pause in a line of poetry, especially near the middle of a line, which creates a break in the rhythm, often used by Shakespeare.
**shavasana: restorative pose often used at the end of a yoga session