14 Nights in Carnac

14 Nights in Carnac 

mixed media - book and oak leaves

Paul Conneally 2006

14 Nights in Carnac - a piece performed and made in July 2006. The artist spends 14 nights in Carnac famous for its megaliths its standing stones. He lives and sleeps below two oak trees. Each night reading sections of Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle plucking an oak leaf from the trees and placing it inside the book as a bookmark.

The experience exists as the book with the 14 leaves pressed inside it.

In 2007 images of the pressed leaves inside the book are transferred on to white ceramic bathroom tiles and form part of Conneally's exhibition in Mile End Arts Pavilion 'The Renewability' curated by  Tomomi Iguchi.

Rocket Stove Made From Two Vegetable Oil Cans - Windmill CommunityGardens

Rocket Stove Made From Cooking Oil Cans, Windmill Community Gardens, Nottingham

If you would like to make one of these rocket stoves yourself here is a link to a step by step guide from Andy Hunt on the Permaculture Website: How to make a rocket stove

Paul Conneally

March 2014

Photo: Paul Conneally

DOES THIS LOVE STILL STAND?

The Wooing Fit (after Beaumont) - Paul Conneally 2011

If I were to close my eyes today

Could you tell me if they're blue or grey?

Could you read my handwriting and say

Something special about my life?

If you loved me you could tell me things

I didn't even know about myself

So tell me now tell me now do

Does this love still stand?

If I washed your toothpaste grin away

Would your ring of confidence still stay?

Would you take my hand and softly say

Paranoia's not attractive?

If you loved me you could tell me things

I didn't even know about myself

So tell me now tell me now do

Does this love still stand?

Paul Conneally

COMPOSED BY THE SIDE OF GRASSMERE LAKE

a repetition of stars

the oar's slow groans

beneath Aquarius

two children found her

floating face up in the lake

one breast visible

below cold murky water

the silver back of a pike

beyond the reeds

clouds linger

on another night

her father throws soil

onto the wooden casket

November drizzle

slowly soaking through his suit

the memory of a smile

Venus' and Mars' abysmal fires

calm and cool in Grasmere Lake

paul conneally & debra woolard bender

from THE WORDSWORTH PAPERS

William Wordsworth after Pickersgill by Susumu Takiguchi

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH

from first dawn

by day or starlight

everlasting motion

little jimmy norcliffe

he looked after me

sorted me out

with a good shovel

and a pair of wellingtons

high objects

the mean and vulgar

works of man

showed me how to dig

without hurting my back

to lay concrete slabs

write out betting slips

on a bag of cement

enduring things

life and nature

purifying

paul conneally

INVIGILATOR : DERBY 2007

Invigilator forms part of the Walk to Work series of pieces.

Invigilator : Derby Paul Conneally transposes Nikki Pugh's journey to work as invigilator in Birmingham gallery VIVID to a starting point at Loughborough railway station. Paul catches the first commuter train to arrive. This takes him to Derby from where he then follows the left rights and straight ons of Nikki's walk in Birmingham but this time in Derby until he reaches his work destination which he finds is on a building site. Here he sets up his Invigilator's chair and beside it his visitors book. Paul tidies up the space and then invigilates it asking people passing through the space to fill in the visitors book just as the invigilator at an art gallery does.

The photographic doccumentation of INVIGILATOR : DERBY was undertaken by Kevin Ryan.

INVIGILATOR is a Collaborative piece by Paul Conneally, Nikki Pugh and kevin Ryan

skinafterskin.blogspot.com/2007/06/invigilator-derby.html

HER EYES ARE WILD

warmer than summer
underneath the haystack
the English tongue

she drinks beer
from the supermarket
in the town square
feeding potato-chips
to pigeons and sparrows

how far I've travelled to find 
one need replaces another

her dog growls
at midnight revellers
coming too close
as she sleeps soundly
in the shoe-shop doorway

the night in my hair
turns black
burning stars

paul conneally & debra woolard bender
from The Wordsworth Papers




Wordsworth after Pickersgill by Susumu Takiguchi

Weavers Fields

On Weavers Fields

That's where we meet

You in your blue dress

Me in my jeans

On Weavers Fields

We fall in love

Seal it with a kiss now

On Weavers Fields

On Weavers Fields

We pass the time

Watching the children

On Weavers Fields

On Weavers Fields

We cool the air

The air between us

On Weavers Fields

Paul Conneally

Leicester: The Edible City - Paul Conneally 2013/14

New Walk Centre - Paul Conneally 2014

I'm now putting together the letter requesting outline planning permission to demolish Leicester City Council's New Walk Centre and change the space it currently occupies into a community orchard.

This takes forward my initial thoughts from 2013 some of which are reported below. 

Here's a link to the original: Leicester the World's First Edible City

"After working closely with my long time collaborator, artist activist, Anne-Marie Culhane, on her ongoing Fruit Routes work across Loughborough University campus, which has now, as EAT YOUR CAMPUS, won the Guardian Sustainability Award 2014, my thoughts on space and how it might be used creatively in a city centre have evolved.

I propose that the Leicester City Council New Walk Centre be demolished and replaced with a large community orchard. The roads and paths from the orchard into and out from the city centre, including the historic New Walk itself, will be planted with fruit trees too. 

Just as Anne-Marie Culhane proposes that Loughborough University becomes the world's first edible campus, I propose that Leicester should become the world's first edible city and that Anne-Marie be invited to work with myself and the City to help make this happen.

LEICESTER THE WORLD'S FIRST EDIBLE CITY"

EAT YOUR CAMPUS - Fruit Routes - The Second Planting

Two years on after the first trees were planted on the Fruit Route, an artist led project by Anne-Marie Culhane, across Loughborough University Campus, we planted more trees. 

The planting followed a workshop on pruning, cutting back to keep the previously planted trees  healthy and promote growth.

I wrote between digging and will publish what comes in due course, in the meantime here's the poem I wrote during the first wave of planting:

The Cut in Her Stomach

bare trees
the sound of spades 
across tarmac

we huddle
by a green tractor 
how to plant a tree

cold rain
it’s at least a two man job
a tree like this

the English undergrad
asks everyone
‘what's nepotism?’

a twinge
from the cut in her stomach 
she digs deep

no not cold
just wet
and getting heavier

the lost referee
asks for directions 
to the all weather pitch

hazel whips 
we find a seam 
of hard core

‘with the hedge’ 
he says 'plant three for one
just in case’

she’ll need
a stepladder now
to see the runners' legs

Paul Conneally
written on 18 Febr, 2012 the first day of planting the new Fruit Route at Loughborough University

Execute by sicchio - a dance score

Execute by sicchio

This is a dance score for the upcoming Quick Shifts on March 16th.

-Find a place to perform this score
-Perform the movement instructions after the word 'execute' is said.
-As the score continues you may start to ignore some movement instructions.
-Have someone take a picture at 2.5min in; 5 min in; 7.5 min in; and at the end
-Tweet the pics with the hashtags: - #improvqu25; #improvqu5; #improvqu75; #improvquend by March 10th
- The images will be collated in their timeframe groupings and projected onto a large
screen to create a new score performed at Embrace Arts, Leicester, March 16th 2014
Instructions:
-By the end of the score you should not be following any of the instructions until you hear 'end'.

For those unfamiliar with twitter the hashtags are important in order for us to find each image once tweeted, so tweet your image with the appropriate hashtag accurately together.

Thankyou

We can be...

'We can be...' Paul Conneally, Leicester, 2014