the skin pool

In both videos a ritual takes place before the camera. Lisa Steele’s ritual is more narrative in nature, because speech is used to tell the tale of scars, and to communicate the nature of the ritual to the viewer. The average ritual of the birthday celebration is subverted here. It is not public, it is intimate, the artist is naked and alone with the camera, and by extension: the viewer. At the end of the video, she chants the traditional song and it’s up to the viewer to figure out whether, there are a dozen more tapes of previous birthdays stowed away in Steele’s attic. One is also left to make the connection between the twenty-six years of the author and the scars behind them. This work celebrates the artist’s survival, her having ‘made it’, especially because the last scar was caused by the removal of a benign tumour. This is no routine birthday celebration, celebrated because of tradition, but rather a meaningful ritual, invested with meaning, which celebrates surv...