
ENDURE
WALTER BAKOWSKI
1 to 23 February 2019

Through the manipulation of time, acts of violence that plead spiritual purity through endurance become a reflection and meditation on religious practice. Filmed at the Abbotsford convent, responding to place and the residual of trauma, lived experiences are conveyed in the form of participatory performance. Acts of iconographic practice in the Catholic doctrine are re-performed in a place where draconian deeds were experienced, facilitating the queering of space. A healing process is formed, as repetitive ritualistic actions produce a state of transcendence and enlightenment.
Endure reflects my personal experiences with societal notions of gender, the struggles of dealing with visibility and the lived experience of repetitive ritualistic patriarchal trauma on a daily basis. The ritual performed in the space engages the experiences that the physical place holds. Breaking the historic boundaries of governance and patriarchal colonisation.