SARAH DUFFY

Performers: Olga Mylnikova, Artour Zakirov and Sarah Duffy

Camera: Alexander Macworth-Praed

Sound and Editing: Sarah Duffy

Part of Entangle, a group exhibition curated by Rosie Hermon as Part of Diep Haven Festival

6 mins, 17 secs two-channel video

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Following on from the live performance Descent, The second part of this body of work zooms in and out of a series of Tableaux Vivants depicting the abduction of Greek Goddess Persephone by God of The Underworld Hades. Persephone was allowed to return to The Upper World for half of the year during which the earth would thrive, but on her return to Hades, her mother Demeter's grief would destroy all in its wake. In Ancient Greece this myth became an explanation for the changing seasons and the cycle of life and death in general. A secretive cult of Demeter and Persephone emerged, performing yearly initiation rites in their honour called The Eleusinian Mysteries, eventually becoming the most sacred of all religious rites in Ancient Greece. Little is known about what these mysteries entailed due to the vows of secrecy taken by cult members, but it is theorised that each year, during the rites, an enactment of Persephone's abduction and Demeter's subsequent quest to rescue her would be performed in a large underground chamber called The Telesterion; the participants further descending into the narrow space between the world of the living and the dead.

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