Ferment Fortnight Preview | Coast Path
25 Jun 2018Ferment Fortnight returns for its bi-annual mini-fest of theatre experiments this July. Here we find out all about Alex Goodman's upcoming show, Coast Path. Catch it at Arnolfini Mon 9 July.
Tell us a bit about yourself…
Hello! My name is Alex and I am a Bristol based artist who makes performance, print and installation in response to landscape. My work celebrates the liminal, the lost and the tidal. In search of inspiration I have worked with remote and rural coastal communities of Cornwall and Scotland’s highlands and islands. My work aims to create a visual and audible poetry investigating how stories, ritual and relationship to landscape reflect the navigation of our everyday lives. I am also a member of Interval, a artist led support network based above St Nicks Market in the Exchange building.
What are you presenting at Ferment Fortnight?
At Ferment Fortnight I am presenting Coast Path, a reflection on a 150 mile walk taken over 15 days in June this year along the South West Coast Path. It will include video and sound which I gathered on my travels and will ask the audience to participate by walking through the piece.
What inspired/influenced your piece?
The work is inspired by ideas of how pilgrimage and connection to ancestral landscapes has been used throughout history as a transformative tool. By taking this walk and making this work I wanted to view these actions as a ritual or a rite as a way to reach a new viewpoint by revisiting a landscape I know very well.
As I walked I became aware of aspects of the landscape I had never noticed before and the journey became a string of experiences finding traces left by past inhabitants and local folklore. I began on the North Coast where I walked through Bronze age burial sites, sections of pilgrimage routes and mermaid myths. The path twisted through West Penwith with its evidence of neolithic peoples dominating the landscape. Down to the edge of the land to the myth of a lost land sunk beneath the sea. From here the path changed direction and the sun now set behind me rather than into the ocean. I walked towards the lake where King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur was thrown, with the sea always on my right hand side. I ended my journey by a lighthouse with the sound of the fog horn reverberating through the air.
What does the work that Ferment do mean to you?
Having the opportunity to show this work at Ferment is very exciting as it is in its beginning stages and is taking shape with the support of other artists. As this piece is to be experienced by walking through it the feedback from the audience will be really helpful to understand how to develop the piece further.
What would you say the audience can expect in three words?
If I had to give three words about what the audience can expect, I would say: Salt, Water, Pilgrimage.
Ferment Fortnight kicks off at Arnolfini 9-11 July before returning to Bristol Old Vic for four more nights of scratch theatre 13-21 July. For more info and to book tickets, click here.
