A State of Being

1990

A stage play

A good way to describe the making of A State of Being is to quote an excerpt from the Artist Statement from my 2013 exhibition, She Dreams of Liberation:

‘1990 and I am commissioned to write a play about Van Gogh for the Edinburgh Festival. I read ALL of the thousands of letters Vincent wrote to the key people in his life. The letters are rich, powerful and unplanned; they are Vincent’s stream of consciousness. The play, A State of Being, evolves into a monologue of selected letters and I become interested in painting.’

A Sate of Being was a significant piece of work that unfolded over two years and resulted in its debut at The Edinburgh Festival in 1990, the centenary of Van Gogh’s death. It came about after my friend the actor, James Marsh read my stage play, The Drying Space, which is a one-person play utilising what I called ‘cinthea’: a blend of cinema and theatre. Jim then commissioned me to make what became A State of Being.

Jim and I worked closely together on the work, we travelled all over the Netherlands and France, visiting the places where Vincent had been, recreating events and photographing them for the cinematic element of the work.

The show ran for the entirety of the 1990 Edinburg Festival and received good reviews, see the Scotsman review, below. It also has a three-performance run in London after the festival. It is a tribute to Jim’s tenacity, commitment and talent that this whole thing came together.