Divine Vessel
Media: Global Survey (2003) Return to media overview
The paradigm of an endless or irresolvable quest can be witnessed in the practice of artists Heather and Ivan Morison, where the staging of grand, episodic adventures or global expeditions appears to produce only ever slight or dematerialised; idiosyncratic or obscure, or else highly personal or anecdotal outcomes. Whilst the performative element of a quest or journey is often central to their practice, the actual motivation for the (re)search itself often remains nonsensical or absurd; poetic or purposeless. It often functions as a ruse or foil through which to undertake an alternative trajectory of enquiry; to create points of arbitrary focus such that they may then explore the resultant peripheries. In 2003, they proposed to undertake a year-long period of research, which would take the form of an irredeemably impossible 'global survey'. Travelling across the Baltic States, Russia, Western Siberia, Mongolia, China and New Zealand, their “quest was to explore without prejudice and to record and broadcast their observations”; where akin to “a pioneering exploration there (was) no end destination, only points to navigate by”. Ambiguous and undeclared, the specific nature of their research was deliberately open-ended and indeterminate. Opportunity and chance encounter were adopted as the critical decision making processes, where relational encounters and conversational exchange plotted the route taken or determined the motivation for each episode of the adventure. Emma Cocker, 'Not Yet There: Endless Searches and Irresolvable Quests', 2007