MOTH: The Fall
performance at Museum KKLB in Beromünster, Switzerland.
Unfolding over the course of a year, MOTH takes place in an unheated, open space in rural Switzerland. The installation invites the weather, non-human animals, and other external factors to enter and take effect on the materials, proposing an interspecies audience and a work that sustains life in the forms of nourishment, burrowing ground and habitat. Comprising organic and inorganic matter, the installation takes on an active, transient quality, in which time, materials, gestures, and words shape and affect one another. The work is further enlivened by four performances that are held in-line with the seasons.
The Fall is the first of four seasonal performances within the exhibition, and took place on October 7th 2018.
Falling throughout history serves as indicator for imminent change. An involuntary movement suspended in space, bound to end up somewhere, without the promise of a soft landing. After her abduction, Proserpina fell to Hades, and with every pomegranate seed she ate, called forth another month of darkness falling.
Above ground, the earliest written narratives of the Proserpina myth mark another fall; the cultural shift from matriarchal worship (of the Goddesses of the Earth) to patriarchal worship (of the Olympic Gods), vivifying the social codes of patriarchy that have been passed down to Western societies as part of their Hellenic heritage. Some centuries later, we find ourselves free falling rapidly towards extinction. “What goes up?” they ask, pointing first to the earth, and then to the heavens.
Proserpina is also a moth species, lying dormant in their pupal stage for winter, quietly preparing herself for emergence in spring.
Photo credit: Mik Matter
Generously supported by Stichting Stokroos
