The body in time and place

Through symbolic action Becky Bowley’s work evokes the relationship between the body and time through the medium of traditional making and the movement of the body within a place. Her interest lies in poetical dialogues between the memory and imagination of human feeling and experiences becoming an embodiment of dream, myth and the ineffable. Materials are composed as symbols of the elements that resonate with impermanence and hint at transformation - to move the body within time and space “To cross a territory, to walk, to open a path, to recognise a place, to comprehend symbolic values, to invent a geography”5.

Grace waves and cherry blossom (at the alter)




 Controversy amongst the congregation, tension growing in a sense of trespass and dis-belonging settled by Father David with his complete and unhesitant support. Standing ones ground with Grace waves and cherry blossom the rules of tea ceremony that take years to master in response to unexpected settings, sites and situations.

"The tea ceremony was a strange and beautiful experience; all of us sitting where the choir stalls had been for hundreds of years - brought on quite a time trip." 

Photograph by Dan Sumption
Here with particular gratitude to Rob Hindle's concern for tea serving.