WITH WOMENS WORK: AUCLAIR - RUZUNGUZUNGU (2021)

Commissioned by ISSUE Project Room NYC as part of the With Womens Work series, inviting artists to interpret and respond to scores included in Womens Work, a magazine first edited and self-published in 1975 by Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood.

The piece responds to the “Stamping Circles” score by artist Carole Weber included in Womens Work Volume #1, 1975.

With Womens Work: Auclair - Ruzunguzungu from ISSUE Project Room on Vimeo.

In Rwanda, homes were traditionally built as roundhouses - an architectural form that would begin with the technique of ‘walking the cord’. A cord is attached to a stake planted in the centre of a chosen plot of land, you step the cord out to the desired radius and then walk the cord around the stake, marking a good circle in the ground, this perimeter defines where you will build the outer wall of your inzu (house). This is repeated to mark out the front and back courtyards, maybe other buildings and a compound perimeter, forming a constellation of circular spaces. Under the influence of Carole Weber’s Stamping Circles, this practice in turn(s) got me thinking, what if I transform this into a ritual? What might come out? What sonic feedback will it create? Is each circle I move through a return ‘home’? Whatever that means?! Walking the cord, I orbit around my centre...whatever that means! The Ibitekerezo myths describe how when the deity Sabizeze was exiled from heaven, he called for his hunting dog, Ruzunguzungu (circling).

indaro = a small hut for spirits
abazimu = ancestral spirits
rimwe = 1
kabiri = 2

Credits

Film by Sophie Clements and Auclair
Production assistance by Luisa Gerstein and Heloise Tunstall-Behrens.