The Procession is a series of artifacts from an imagined ritual. The work is an exploration into the role our personal experiences, and intuition, play in the making and forming of knowledge.
In the final body of work the audience will navigate around the work, taking a pilgrimage, and in doing so completing the ritual by performing a choreographed journey that is to bring forth the imagined change.
The series of artifacts are both suggestive of a performative action that has or is about to take place. The audience views the work with the anticipation of action, perhaps looking for signs of change.
Image details:
1. The Procession (Part 1: Portal). Found and reused materials. 100 x 100cm (detail)
Made from found and reused materials The Procession (Part 1: Portal) is a reflective space containing the hopes of the maker for a better life. These are woven into the threads through a slow and repetitive process creating the opportunity to avoid reality and at the same time, meditate on an imagined space of some other more attractive alternative.
2. The Procession (Part 2: Underwear)
3. The Procession (Part 3: Smock)
4. The Procession (Part 4: Cloak)
Made from old bed sheets, past works and found materials. The garment, a cloak, is embroidered with motifs representing significant moments that have occurred over the course of the construction of the cloak. As the weight and material of the garment accumulate over time, it simultaneously falls apart and is reconstructed or repaired.
5. The Procession (Part 5: Shoes)
6. The Procession (Part 6: Ring)
7. The Procession (Part 7: Necklace)
8. The Procession (Part 8: Bag)
9. The Procession (Part 9: Hat)
10. The Procession (Part 10: Stick)
11. The Procession (Part 11: Scent - September, October, November). Ceramics, dog hair, human hair, perfume, gold thread.
Three ceramic vessels containing perfume made from flowers found in my garden during the months of September, October and November. The necklace is made from dog and human hair.
12. The Procession (Part 12: Bells)
13. The Procession (Part 13: Vessels, tools)
14. The Procession (Part 14: A Sorcerer’s Dress). Studio scraps, test pieces, failures and project remnants, 240 x 240 cm.
A Sorcerer’s Dress was originally a blanket made from all the failed works, test pieces and scraps accumulating in Peake’s studio from 2016. The intention was to give them status and honour or transform them in a symbolic gesture as an important part of her practice. The blanket was then embellished with gold and velvet, and turned into a shamanic coat of sorts; a vestment ready to be worn as part of new rituals for making.
In 2018 the garment was taken apart and reshaped into a burial shroud that reflected not only on changes to Peake’s personal circumstances, but also on ideas of transformation and alchemy.
The work was disassembled following its’ exhibition in 2018 and over time the parts were reformed into a carpet. The 2021 iteration of the work has become a hopeful moment to the process of creation and time spent in the studio.