MUD

Performance at International Garden Festival, Liverpool, as part of a storytelling project by The Black-E.

9-10 June 1984

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Hooded, dressed in black and with his face painted white, MacLennan sat on a small bridge over the rocky bed of a non-existent artificial river. He had with him a large black bag and a stool pigeon. A sign beside him read ‘Storytelling on request: The Mud Story’. Members of the public came over to listen.

‘MacLennan chose a story about an experience he had once after attending a Zen session outside Los Angeles. He was shown a house where everything in it was covered in mud – all items, from furniture to cutlery – a house, which emanated complete redundency.’

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