change
2020
Single channel colour HD video with stereo sound, 2’41”
Location: Forest Garden, Suffolk
© Sophie Standford‘Aquarius woman’ bears water steeped in the rich mythology of Western culture, she signifies the stereotype of woman and water, purity and desire. Water as metaphor, of forgetfulness, of fecundity, of Biblical floods, of washing and watering.
Yet, here a performance tinged with self-deprecating humour as ‘Aquarius woman’ unexpectedly waters herself. In doing so, she acknowledges the drowned women of British Victorian imagination that might have haunted this garden.
Initially conceived in response to a request to create a ‘one minute sculpture’ as espoused by Erwin Wurm, who speculated on how the restrictions of a sculpture could be overcome using everyday objects and limiting the sculpture’s life to only one minute.