Walking / Pausing / In Gathering Light
(The Orchard Suite)
2022
A Performance by David Ward
in Jyll Bradley’s Pardes
The Warehouse
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
Followed by a conversation between David Ward, Jyll Bradley and Fiona Bradley.
Saturday 26th March 2022
This new performance by David Ward Walking / Pausing / In Gathering Light (The Orchard Suite) responded to underlying themes and structures within Jyll Bradley’s installation Pardes, and drew on a continuing conversation between the two artists. The performance brought in sources from poetry, painting and music including language from Rilke’s poetry; Poussin’s painting Et in Arcadia Ego; a piece of contemporary classical music, Reveal, written for violist Jane Atkins by composer Anna Clyne; ambient sound recordings that he made in the rainforests of the Upper Orinoco River in 1995, and a reading of his poem The Glass Hammock.
‘The Performance grows out of a kind of vocabulary of associations and movements. Transient gestures and held positions; standing, sitting, leaning and stepping. Actions and stillness and the pausing of the body all occur in the light of Jyll’s installation Pardes.’ (David Ward)
‘Pardes is an ancient word for orchard or garden, with forms in many cultures and languages including Greek, Persian, Arabic and Hebrew. It is the root of the English word “paradise”.’ (Jyll Bradley)
This collaboration is a partner to Ward’s performance in Bradley’s installation Dutch/Light at Turner Contemporary, Margate (2017/2019) which gave rise to their film Woman Holding a Balance (2021).
Ward returned to the Fruitmarket having collaborated with Bruce McLean there on McLean’s performance sculpture Partition in 1986.
