How to Talk With Plants: Ray Fenwick
Ray Fenwick’s How to Talk With Plants centres on a person whose starting point is faith in the possibility of communicating with plants. Not just talking to them, but with them; a kind of first contact with a new species. His belief is tested, and questions begin to pile up, but despite mounting doubts he refuses to lose faith, urging the audience to do the same. “If we figure this out,” he says, “we figure everything out.”
Set amongst a menagerie of live plants, the work switches form restlessly, addressing the audience and the plants in equal measure. Using admittedly absurd means, the work teases out the awkwardness and impossibility of our own attempts to make contact—not with plants, but with each other.
Ray Fenwick is an interdisciplinary artist working with performance, video, sound and typography. His work is an often playful attempt to explore unusual relationships with language, voice, and communication.
This event was BYOP (Bring Your Own Plant).
