BURY THE VEIL

Montreal, Canada : 1986

3 hour non stop performance/installation at Articule Gallery, Montreal.

26 November 1986


From 8pm to 11pm MacLennan occupied the installation, wearing all black, a balaclava over his head and glasses with only one lens. A mixture of sounds played – Irish chants, the ocean and birds. Crutches, phones, sinks, bed frames, a ladder, a wedding dress and a tricycle were suspended from the ceiling, the phones only just touching the sand coated floor.

‘Echoing from the L-shaped room, sand on the floor formed a field, above which phone receivers hung like mobiles. A suspended child’s tricycle was repainted. The wedding dress, bought in Sandy Row, Belfast, was suspended upside down, a haversack attached to its neckline. MacLennan barely moved round the field of sand.’

Text from ‘Alastair MacLennan: Is No’, ed. Stephen Snoddy, 1988.