Naomi Lewis and Charlie Cattrall have been involved in writing and creating together for well over a decade. They are currently putting the finishing touches to their forthcoming book HermiH, illustrated by the artist Nooka Shepherd. The underpinning methodology for the creation of the plot came through applying a technique borrowed from animistic practices, utilised in ancestral times, of dreaming collectively. Within this form is the notion that the book itself is alive and has a voice, in line with the Greek philosophy of receiving direction from the muse. Long sections of text have been written through the process of using movement to generate language, a form and practice Lewis and Cattrall developed through an enduring relationship with two of their teachers, Paul Oertel and Nancy Spanier of Performance Inventions. Below you will find a short section of writing from the work. If you would like to receive updates on publication please subscribe via the Workshops page.

The drowning dream,

Sunk,

In the morass of Him

-

Where is she?

-

There is movement together across an unseen terrain 

And sweat

Heat in the water

Blinkered  into one conjoined sight

They look

See the sea

‘The sea the sea the sea’

The drawing in of She

Death is She 

Life is He

Blinkered

Moss beneath the surface 

She and He

Into the blind seeing of skin 

Feeling of flesh 

Sweat

Life is dissolved into Death

She is in the dying 

He is in the living

Of the strung up life,

The haunted breath 

The living noose

Muscular tide

Failing flesh

Sweat.

Give me the summer to love,

Drowning,

Torn from darkness, 

Monkey wants the birth of death

Torn from the horse

Thrown into life

Bring me darkness 

Bring me to the place beneath 

Not this barrelling insult of life

Strange vector of games

The game of man

Where is She?