The one that got away…

As an artist, especially a performance artist, it is normal to be judged only on the work that you have publicly presented. This sounds fair enough, right? We sign our names beside that which we complete. Unfinished ideas are seen as drafts, workings, useful for social content perhaps. If you’re really lucky, maybe one day people who are interested in your process will look around in your notebooks and wonder what might have been…

Ah-Be (in the direction of a rose) is not an unfinished project of mine. It is one that was stolen from me by fate.

And I will steal it back.

Beginning work in 2015, I had a plan to walk to Iran, camping along the waterways of Europe and the Caucasus, to deliver my one true love to my grandmother, broadcasting the sound of the journey the whole way. This plan drew collaborators, including the UN, the British Council, Arts Council England and others. In September 2016, I contracted glandular fever, an illness that would lead chronic fatigue, epilepsy and a several of dark nights of the soul. Four years later, when I was feeling ready to hold this project in my sights again, it was 2020, and we all know what happened then.

If you’re interested in the first iteration of Ah-Be, where it got to and where it was going, you can download this information pack.