An intimate spoken word performance by Florence Peake, recalling her encounters with the cave and the existential immersion it offers her.

Part of Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy, a programme of six specially commissioned artworks exploring the concept and practice of wellness.

The opening can be hard to find
A thin slash
barefaced cliff face
Turn sideways to enter
Abrasive crunch of pebbles, a crude ingress
Adjust to settle, fingertips rasping on your rough inner lining
to steady on the movable ground

There is a tidal cave on the Jurassic coast, South West England. It is a site of retreat and refuge from the world for only 3 hours before it is again submerged by the Atlantic. A place of dark, wet sanctuary, Peake considers the cave a lover. This intimate spoken word performance recalls her encounters with the cave and the existential immersion it offers her.

Florence Peake is a London-based artist who has been making work since 1995. Her performance practice uses drawing, painting and sculpture combined with found and fabricated objects placed in relation to the moving body. Site and audience, live and recorded text, wit and candour are key to her work, which has been presented internationally and across the UK, in contexts including De La Warr Pavilion (2018), Palais de Tokyo (2018), CRAC Occitanie (2018), Wysing (2017), Serpentine (2016), Whitechapel Gallery (2016), ICA (2015), Harris Museum (2015), Hayward (2014), BALTIC (2013), Frieze (2013), Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2012). Upcoming work includes Apparition Apparition co-authored with Eve Stainton for the Venice Biennale, 8 - 11 May 2019