The Struggle, Performance, 2014 (Still from video documentation by Matthew Birchall)

The Struggle is a performance rooted in loneliness; it deals with the many challenges of creativity and serves also as a metaphor for the many challenges of life. The starting point of the performance is a large cardboard box which births the artist who may or may not have chosen to wear a black plinth like object over the upper part of her body, concealing her identity and restricting her vision and movement. The artist struggles with the experience of leaving this womb-like box, and the weight of the new form is carried with her throughout. The restriction of the heavy black plinth acts as an embodiment of the pressures often forced upon us by the real world. The viewers can only watch the physically and mentally exhausting task, but one which is necessary and dependent upon completion. It is a task that the artist may have set herself or by some outside force. Creativity itself is a task, a struggle.