Kin
‘Kin’ is concerned with the subjectivity and difference experienced within familial relations. The work explores the edges of what we know of ourselves in context to family. It asks viewers to consider how much we are defined by these formative relationships, and whether we can recognise their impact on our identities?
I am fascinated that family can represent windows to our future; that they can be reflections or a touchstone on the present; and that they can reveal behaviours that in their routine go unnoticed.
‘Kin’ is the struggle for what we can define in response to the presence formative relationships take in our lives. This work, like much of my practice, features movements defined by the interactions between performers at the time of shooting. They are not choreographed. Instead, they are informed by simple conceptual prompts and guided by the maturity of the relationships and presence of one another’s bodies within space.
Here these performers are my own family. Together we push outwards and expand the boundaries the work exists within. With this expansion an allegorical articulation of the ongoing search for what defines self emerges; with the performers falling somewhere between the risks we take in defining our own agency and the safety net that foundational relationships offer.
Exhibited —
‘Presence II', praxis ARTSPACE, SA, 2021.
Director, editor, performer and soundscape design —
Henry Wolff
Featuring —
Ingrid Wolff, Werner Wolff
Videographer —
Jai McGregor
Mentors —
Hoda Afshar, Eugenia Lim
How might we even begin to describe our most intimate relationships when they involve such complex intersections of love, obligation, expectation and dependence.
On 'KIN'
by Kate O'Boyle
The way we choose to share and claim space in relation to those closest to us becomes a way of knowing ourselves. Identity building is collaborative and underpinned by an ever-evolving negotiation with those around us. Fluidity in these terms is essential to support the changing needs of those invested in them. Yet, these arrangements often become fixed, and our relationships an ongoing reperformance of old routines. Which makes me wonder, what do we lose and gain when we share space with someone?
'Kin' invites us quite literally behind-closed doors into a small, non-descript interior. The room is skeletal; it’s not quite a space but it has the bones of one. The dream-like liminality of this interior sits in contrast to the exterior – visible only through a modest-looking window frame. This world, the ‘real’ world, waits patiently in the background as three performers undertake a series of physical exchanges. We view their movements through slow motion and feel time decelerate and elongate.
Artist Henry Wolff often collaborates with their loved ones, and here they perform alongside their sister, Ingrid and father, Werner. The family’s gestures are intuitive and improvised, subject only to the felt moment. Relinquishing control over the way performers choose to engage allows a working space to emerge and a sensorial language to develop. Unique to the performers pairing, this language describes their relationship far more effectively than spoken narrative might. Afterall, how might we even begin to describe our most intimate relationships when they involve such complex intersections of love, obligation, expectation and dependence.
'Kin' unfolds through haptic transactions, a tactile searching between family members. The trio perform together and alone, allowing us to observe how the presence of one alters the energy between the others. In witnessing this, we might also refer to Wolff’s 2020 work 'Sibling', also shown as part of the same exhibition. This work also uses slow motion, a neutral palette and minimalist production, and in doing so allows for a re-examination of the siblings’ relationship when proximate to their father.
The siblings’ father, Werner, is a paradoxical figure. Stripped to the waist his chest reveals aging tattoos – markings from an era when such things spoke to outsider status rather than middle-class privilege. These markings sit in contrast to his maturing body and gentle movements. He engages his adult children with timidity and tenderness. The siblings unmistakably guide their father through the performance process, and yet he still holds enough power to alter the energies between them.
The trio’s movements are choreographed according to tacit rules developed over the duration of their relationship. There are agreed upon rules of engagement at play here. While we know nothing of their histories per se, their movements embody a complex combination of tension, trepidation and care. Or maybe that’s just me? The beauty of Wolff’s approach is their use of ambiguity, which makes it impossible to encounter their work without bringing to it one’s own experience of family.
Our caregivers (even in absence) form our fundamental introduction to life. How we approach the world and subsequent relationships are filtered through that primary socialisation, and broader societal expectations of familial roles. As our identities form, our perception of those closest to us act as a point from which we measure ourselves. Our relationships are collaborations in identity building. So often we position ourselves in opposition to a parental figure, only to later be confronted with our similarities. Whether we build ourselves in alignment or opposition to our caregivers, our sense of self is intertwined with theirs.
The performers in 'Kin' are bound together in multiple and complex ways. There is a feeling of going away and coming back. While 'Sibling' (2020) broke entirely free of the interior – 'Kin' feels very much bound by it. Even when the performers manage to escape the confines of the interior space – finding limited freedom on the roof of the building, they remain proximate to it. They push at the edges of this space never quite breaching its boundaries. We reach with them into the unknown, questioning our own trajectories, but are left suspended between possibility, retreat and the fall.
Written by Kate O’Boyle; an emerging artist and writer based in Naarm. She would like to acknowledge that this text was written on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people.
