Ferment Fortnight: VIOLENT CREATURES - Hannah Sullivan

I keep spraining my ankle - and so my usual process of working physically has taken an extreme turn into a lot of reading and writing. The product of this reading and writing is what I will show at Ferment Fortnight. It will be an experiment for me. Violent Creatures is the working title of a whole bunch of feelings and thoughts on the human as a violent creature that I am currently trying to piece together. The process began in April this year at Falmouth University with a writer/illustrator friend of mine, Joanna Waterhouse. We spent a week drawing, automatic and autobiographical writing, shouting, singing and trying things out in response to violence – in a very broad and open manner. [gallery type="rectangular" ids="176471126,176471127,176471129"] Now I am sitting with this original material, cutting, extending, enacting, chopping, convoluting…It feels like a kind of chain reaction of hopefully connecting images or ideas that currently looks a little like this… Play fighting – fighting – rage – justifiable rage – perceptions of anger – language around anger – understanding anger through animal studies – this not being useful –instinctive drives – mosh pits – strikes - bodies – sharks – rabbits – predators and victims – fight, flight, freeze - playing dead – internal violence of the body. The work is at that point in the creative process when one word just explodes into an infinity of possibilities – Violence becomes everything, it becomes life, death, existence and it all feels a bit overwhelming. But I’ve been here before. I have been reading On Violence by Hannah Ardent – an epic piece of writing on humans and violence, covering a lot that I don’t have the stomach to go into but offering extreme ‘Eureka’ moments when she puts into words what I was dithering about. Some of these words will be in the show. There are also some words from a favourite source of mine RadioLab (http://www.radiolab.org/) and possibly some words from a movie that kick started a lot of this for me There Will Be Blood'. SO as you can see I am working with WORDS. So expect a lot of them. Violent Creatures Hannah Sullivan Bristol Old Vic Studio Wed 16 Jul, 8.15pm £5hannahsullivan.co.uk | @hannahsullivan8