Bernadette Hopkins Artist
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    • The Invisible Red Line
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    • Social Practice Art Collaborations
    • Bread and Roses Theatre
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    • Artist Statement
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    • Publication Donegal Intercultural Framework Document
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Forgotten Places

Wild Swans 'Forgotten Places' Performance Art took place between Spain and Fanad Co. Donegal in May-September 2020.  The project was an introduction to performance art in the North West of Ireland, making it accessible to a wider general audience. It was showcased via the Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny and funded by Creative Ireland and Donegal County Council and supported by Bbeyond Performance Art, Belfast. 


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‘Steeped, was a word she used’


that first cut of granite, scraped and shaped, was put on boats 
and floated out on a buoyant ocean, followed by sons and daughters 

eleven babies scooped out, delivered 
left an unseen wound in a small woman 
with an independent spirit
whose sacrifice was unrequited
no one heard 
as hers was not the sanguine or bullish story 
that this new republic cared for 
on second thoughts 

there are many ways to cut out a tongue and poverty is one  

my mother grew steeped in it 

she rose out of this submerged language and sense of otherness
she saw herself in rock pools and sheets of wet sands, as an elemental force 
her skin taut over protruding wrist bones and strong calf muscles 
barefoot and untamed with a mane of copper 
un-belonging
she didn’t take the garments given to her by church and state
late at night 
she sewed gowns of autonomy and liberty and wore them in solidarity 
she hurled ideas of family law and rights for women 
like boulders out into a sea of tuts
 
my grandmothers table stands here in the tides of time
in ebbs and flows 
cyclical rhythms and measurements that women understand
forget me not, I hear her say

Bernadette Hopkins  ‘Forgotten Places’ Performance Fanad. Co.Donegal 08/08/2020

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Telephone

+353 86 3711 601

Email

bernadettehopkins@icloud.com
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  • Home
  • Performance Art
    • Wild Swans Performance Art
    • Forgotten Places
    • Our Bodies Their Borders
    • Dust of Destruction: Breathe
    • Margaritifera margaritifera
    • Gothenburg performance
    • Fem 20 Performance
    • The Politics of Water
    • Bound for your Pleasure
    • Fem 2019 Girona, Spain
    • Tainted Cyan
    • 'Voicing the Bridge' Clady Border
    • Three People in a Room at a Table
    • We are all I know is there
    • Please Open the Door Behind You
    • Buried Deeds
    • The Invisible Red Line
    • The Broken Column
    • Administration of Occupation
  • Participatory Art
    • Rights of Nature
    • Breaking Borders 2022
    • Radical ReThink
    • Roots of Disarmament
    • Call for the Wild
    • Night of the Utopian Bonfire
    • Toxic Blush
    • Cyan SOS The Occupation
    • Drawn From Borders
    • Culture Crossroads
    • Utopia Ducks
    • Art of Resistance
    • Social Practice Art Collaborations
    • Bread and Roses Theatre
  • About
    • Artist Statement
    • CV
    • Biography
    • Recent Events
    • Publication Donegal Intercultural Framework Document
    • Contact
    • Misc.
    • Media