Amala Groom | Red Tape | 2016 | durational performance | approximately 30 min
in situ MCA Artbar, curated by Jason Wing, Museum of Contemporary Art
image courtesy of Amala Groom and Sam Whiteside and Leslie Liu

Red Tape is a durational performance where Groom corporeally negotiates the bureaucracy of the imposition of third dimensional reality on her spiritual and physical bodies by wrapping herself in red electrical tape and then jumping through a hoop.

The performance begins with 44 rolls of red electrical tape in a line with a red hoop on the right-hand side of the floor. In full ochre, Groom enters the space, averting the audience gaze, with her clapsticks in hand. Once in position, Groom closes her eyes and begins to sing a song in Wiradyuri. Her voice is loud and the song permeates the audience. She plays her clapsticks as she sings. She finishes singing and opens her eyes as she drops her clapsticks and stares ahead locking gaze with a single member of the audience.

Groom begins the wrapping of time with the 44 rolls of red electrical tape, each representing a Gregorian calendar year that her spirit has been incarnated in the physical world, subject to the spatial proximity of the limitations of the imposition of third dimensional reality. Groom struggles with the tape and it is painful to watch.

When Groom finishes the recreation of this spiritual bondage, she picks up the red hoop and proceeds to jump through the hoop circling the crowd 3 times in an anti-clockwise direction and then continues to jump through the hoop exiting the stage.