Stream of Consciousness (2010)

As words coalesce in a flow of consciousness they provide form for otherwise formless and transient thoughts. Renshaw will sew and tie together words using organic material that will then be set loose to drift down a stream. This material intervention will float in water as a mobile sculptural poem. Inscribed with an improvised text, it may dissolve in the water or be recomposed by currents. Letters and words, connected like strands of seaweed, will tangle and come apart like the shifting patterns of language and memory. Just as linguistic constructions are subject to the wear of time—and forgetfulness—so too, all the materials of this work will decompose or dissolve leaving little trace in the environment. Ideally, all these materials will come from the very site where the words of this text will be both composed and undone. Renshaw may therefore choose to recompose leaves or other flotsam found on site to create her watery poem. Given the complex dynamics of writing in water, every thoughtful but improvised stage in this creative process will significantly inform and alter the whole. Time, like water, is said to flow. This artwork will materialize this metaphorical relationship by allowing water and time to act upon its fabricated words. In this way, Renshaw brings us to contemplate her deliberate actions, as she releases her words, those ephemeral containers of meaning and thought, to memorably take and lose form in a watery stream of consciousness.

Please see the Workshop page for details about this installation and the artists' roundtable.