Approaching Viriditas (Epilogue) (2019)

• 68%
• 2019
• Documentary
• Holly Slingsby

An egg that won't crack. A mermaid who wants to do the splits. A breast that won't lactate. A pelican that pecks itself. This performance to camera builds on a series of live works made in 2018 and develops a free-associative language to discuss the lived experience of fertility treatment. Viriditas is a concept associated with the medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen – a notion of spiritual 'greening', which here is applied to the female body. Performative action is layered with readings of Hildegard's texts and coded watercolour drawings. Other points of reference include Carlo Crivelli's portraits of the Virgin and Child; the lactating nereids on the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna; and the pagan-Catholic hybrid goddess, Madonna of the Wheat. This work is supported by a bursary from a-n The Artists Information Company and supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.