ARTSPACE
31 MARCH 2001
3 pm + 5 pm
LEADONNAN
THE FIRST RITUAL
The First Ritual is a devotional ceremony
for new recruits to the Cult of Magda. The
recruits will make their first act of devotion
via the intimate embrace of the Anonymous
Idols - enigmatic figures who form a base
from which to understand collective human
experience. Freed from their modern day
entrapments the recruits don a reverential
garment containing the persona of a cult
idol. A period of rest in the garment as a
form of worship intimately aligns them
with the cult's holy lost souls - this
experience is the gift of their new faith.
The First Ritual is part of Donnan's
ongoing project relating to the Cult of
Magda which explores personal and
industrial residue of past lives and attempts
to create a point of intersection between the
past and present, bringing into existence a
modern religious collective memory and
marrying it with bygone experiences of a
century ago.
Working from a studio beneath the seven
abandoned levels of Scots Church, soon to
be redeveloped, Donnan's work is informed
by the derelict state of the building and
traces of habitation it contains. The
performance coincides with the Temporary
Fixtures exhibition project as it responds on
a personal level to Scots Church as a site
suspended in time and to the impact of
redevelopment on the inner city
environment, including spaces utilised by
artists.