Barefoot Blindfold - Choreographed by Birdsong

The blind man's guide,
Meek and neglected thing, of no renown!
Soon will peep forth the primrose, ere it fades
Friends shall I have at dawn, blackbird and thrush
To rouse me, and a hundred warblers more!

from 'The Recluse' by William Wordsworth

Artist Paul Conneally during his and Anne-Marie Culhane's Barefoot Blindfold piece at 5am on Loughborough University Fruit Route.

Eleven were slow walked by Anne-Marie Culhane into an orchard section of her ongoing Fruit Route work at Loughborough University to take part in Culhane and Conneally's 'Barefoot Blindfold.

Participants chose a fruit tree sat against it and were blindfolded in order to foucus their senses away from the visual for the the first half hour and then still in slience to spend the next half hour without the bliindfold recording their emotions / reactions to the fruit route at dawn.

Conneally invited them during the blindfold session to allow the sounds to choreograph the movements of their upper body and arms. This is a short section filmed by Miriam Keye of Conneally being choreographed by nature in fact by birdsong.

This is only a small part of the whole of Barefoot Blinfold but offers perhaps opportunities to explore the idea of being choreographed by nature further in other works to come. Perhaps we already are.

Walk the Line - Changing Landscapes

WALK THE LINE - Changing Landscapes 

This video shows people of Kings Norton 3 Estates taking part in Changing Landscapes 'Walk the Line' a Public Artwork comissioned by Birmingham City Council.

Artist Maurice Maguire with Rob Colbourne surveyed the route of the Wast Hill canal tunnel that passes under the Kings Norton 3 Estates Birmingham UK and marked it with blue on the surface. Residents were then invited to meet and join Maurice, Rob, Paul Conneally, Rob Hewitt and others to 'walk the line'.

During the walk participants were encoraged to engage with their surroundings and the canal below them via short talks from Maurice Maguire that gave an insight on the history and importance of the canal tunnel below the estate on the landscape and spaces of the 3 Estaes today. Paul Conneally introduced walkers to haikai ways of seeing everyday things, writing haiku and sharing them back with others in the Kings 3 Cafe after the walk.

Changing Landscapes is an artist led project conceived by Maurice Maguire
Changing Landscapes is curated by Maurice Maguire and Rob Hewitt.


This movie is part of the collection: Community Video

Director: Paul Conneally
Producer: Paul Conneally
Production Company: haikumania
Sponsor: Changing Landscapes - Birmingham City Council
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Maurice Maguire; Paul Conneally; Rob Colbourne; Rob Hewitt; Kings Norton; 3 Etstates; psychogeography;transliterate; haiku; haiku hike; mapping; art; performance art; 

OLYMPIC - Back to Basics

OLYMPIC - wordsearch landscape, London Olympic Development Site - Paul Conneally 2006

I will be moving away from photography, though not completely, in terms of documenting and representing in 2014.

I will return to new ways, some very old, of conveying place, space, time, people and the feelings set up through encounters with them.

A new set of Wordsearch Portraits and Landscapes will emerge along with frottage, print, found object and ephemera pieces.

New interventions are planned and further iterations of Shopputting, INVIGILATOR and LIAR (Look I Am Reading).

This said I'm sure that photographs will be appearing, if not in my planned commissioned pieces, certainly here!

Paul Conneally

Grow Sheffield - Wordsearch Portrait of Jerry Simon - Postcard - Paul Conneally 2010