If only considering the title of Marina Abramovic’s 7th Piece Entering the Other Side (2005) it immediately makes me think of a journey. It could be linked to Alice in Wonderland who entered the other side of the mirror in Alice Through the Looking Glass. However when we add in the context of repetition and ritual I begin to tie links to religion. It leads to thoughts of life and death, Jesus’ ascension into heaven, our personal journey through life and entering into the afterlife.

Through these thoughts the work I created focused on the religious ritual of the blessing of the bread and the wine which is used as a symbol of a human sacrifice, presented at the last supper before Jesus was put to death, hanging on the cross. My work features images and movements that represented these ideas. I attempted to endure through balancing on one foot on a hair with my arms held out to the side in order to represent the image of the crucifix. After a while of struggling to balance I gave up, putting my foot down and moving onto the next image. It was pointed out to me through feedback that this may have been more effective had I not put my foot down. Instead allowing nature and gravity to have its affect on my body and allowing the audience the chance to see what would happen when fatigue and lack of balance took their hold on my body and won the battle I was placing against them.

In progressing the work, I am not sure that I want to place so much focus on the direct link to religion, making the connection so clear to the viewer. I am interested in playing with the idea of ascension and entering into the other world. I have still yet to physically watch the original work and so do not yet have this as documentation to use within my work. However from what I have read around the performance I take away the ideas of power and dominance over the audience, but still having a connection with them, whether that is in the position of equal, submission or dominance. It may be that after watching the original work I have a more clear idea of which direction I intend to take my re-work of Abramovic’s piece.