Megan Prince: Spinning lines and ruts of repetition
in Howl with forest for the trees at railspur, Seattle, WA
July 21-24, 2022
For HOWL I recreated my site-specific installation, Spinning Lines, with a community of non-binary and female-identifying people and allies. The corresponding durational performance Ruts of Repetition happened daily. In addition there will be two performance events; during HOWL’S opening reception 7/21 from 5-9pm and closing the show 7/24 from 7-9pm featuring arealists Amy Funbuttons dancing suspended in the installation for the last hour, until collapse. Visit my videos and performance page for more information on Spinning Lines (including process videos) and my IG for the full live video footage from the final piece.
Both transparent and solid, Spinning Lines, is a site-specific string installation addressing the circular nature of life while toeing the line between drawing and sculpture. Why is it that we make the same choices and walk the same paths? Sometimes we get stuck and forget we have a choice. The truth comes out in the saying "We are creatures of habit." The seemingly simplistic aesthetic evokes a personal search for each viewer leading toward introspection and our human tendency to repeat ourselves.
Ruts of Repetition (RoR) is a durational performance about the paths we form in our daily lives and how easily we form these patterns and get stuck in them. It takes three repetitions to make a habit but a life time to break one. Adding to my installation, Spinning Lines, RoR will grow and evolve over the next four days.
Megan Prince, Installation and performance view, Spinning Lines and Ruts of Repetition, 2022, Photos by Megan Prince.
This multi-disciplinary work was featured in the exhibition Howl, curated by Lele Barnett and Amanda Manitach, with Forest for the Trees at RailSpur, a satellite to the Seattle Art Fair with a 4 day block party.
Howl is a survey of female-identifying and non-binary artists who work in large-scale material and voice. From hanging gardens to tensile textile walls, ephemeral text tracings to punk-poetic shout-outs, the exhibit encompasses a range of material expressions as elegant as they are aggressive, spanning the softly ecstatic to blunt-force unapologetic.
Exhibited works include installations from both regional and national artists, and features reproductions of vital and viral images produced by the organization Shout Your Abortion. Across the works in this exhibit is a through-line where technical precision meets poetic expression, an offering of violent beauty that calls for response.
The bittersweet march towards collective healing, progress, health, and survival lands on the ever-bending backs of these beasts of perpetual burden and power. May women rule the world.