Performance
No Where // Now Here
Tramway, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
four stars
THE crowded darkness of Tramway 4 is swelteringly hot. FK Alexander is, however, resolutely active: by the end of her solo show, she will be drenched in sweat – and we will feel chilled to the soul because of it.
When we see her, at the start, she’s in a brisk black business suit, white shirt, corporate tie – the bare feet are not just a rebellious quirk, they ground her as she walks the length of a narrow line of coal. No huge lumps, more like nutty slack, but as she encircles it, her twinkling torch causes little shards to gleam: black diamonds, underground riches, a source of energy that she owns, but doesn’t touch.
The flip-side comes when the screen behind her fills with hectic images of modern urban life. Night traffic blazing trails of coloured light along motorways, that sense of headlong rushing echoed in footage – sourced and collaged by Nick Anderson – that races from factory floor to supermarket to Glasgow tower blocks being demolished, erased from the landscape in puffs of smoke, similar to those that occasionally sigh out into the space.
While the soundscore, compiled by Paul Michael Henry and Alexander herself, builds like a punch to the eardrums, Alexander gradually sloughs off her boardroom uniform and, on hands and knees, slowly pushes the long line of coal into a heap. Black dust clings to sweating flesh as she mines a wealth of associations: her own effortful physicality evokes the now-redundant labour of pit-men, and – alongside the demolished flats – confronts the prodigality and waste of our times. It’s a meticulously assembled, brutal piece where the elegaic grit becomes a badge of resilient endeavour, a gauntlet challenging our compliance in exhausting the earth.
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