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Aspiration

This is a collaboration between Softday and Áine Phillips. In the performance Áine Phillips did a series of actions and interactions with 700 coat hangers, responding and reacting to the Softday sounds. When she performed this at the Dublin Live Art Fest in September, she also spoke the letter (word, name??) X aloud repeatedly in different intonations at intervals (see below "song for X") during the 2 hour performance.

Aspiration

According to WHO, 70,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions, performed in countries where abortion is illegal. The article from the World Health Organization calls safe, legal abortion a "fundamental right of women, irrespective of where they live". The article states "ending the silent pandemic of unsafe abortion is an urgent public-health and human-rights imperative." (Wikipedia "Unsafe abortion".
Aspiration explores the physical body's action in relation to 700 hangers (representing 1% of the 70K who die annually) - wearing them, entangling with them, pulling around like a treacherous burden and entombment within the pile. The performance also incorporates a "song for X". X is the anonymous woman, whose rape at the age of 14 and subsequent court case to obtain abortion 20 years ago was the propellor to the new limited abortion legislation recently brought into law in Ireland. The installation of hangers also reference's the assembly and amassing of large numbers of human beings, in huge crowds or swarms or where we see bodies piled in death camps or situations of war and mass murder. The hangers are ubiquitous, so common and normal but they can also be dangerous perilous instruments.
Aspiration is the action of drawing fluid by suction from a vessel or cavity, a medical procedure that can be associated with abortion . It is also aspirational and about desire, longing and hope. It is also the action of producing a sound with an exhalation of breath.

This recording is from the live performance at the H-Q in Limerick city. 30th of November 2013, 15:00.