ARCHIVE / ORIGIN WORK 01
Lines of
Conduct
Durational performance and installation
of remnants
Ashton Park School, Bristol · April 1997
THE FIRST KNOT
A remembered punishment becomes a ritual of instruction, material and residue.
Set within a small office in a former school being used as studio spaces, the work developed from the room’s atmosphere of seclusion and authority. The space recalled a headteacher’s office and a childhood memory of being sent there for playing football.
THE ROOM
Sent to the headteacher
Wearing a floral dress reminiscent of the one worn that day, Blunt performed a ritualised sequence of actions. A tangled mass of bra straps was drawn from a hessian sack associated with school sports days.
THE INSTRUCTIONS
Writing lines
Stories, fairy tales and nursery rhymes were plaited through the straps. Extracts from a book of social etiquette—instructions governing how boys, girls and young women should behave—were removed from the cupboard and copied onto the blackboard.
Audience members entered individually, sat on a school chair and were invited to write lines while the performance continued around them.
THE REMNANTS
What remained became the work.
At intervals, cherry blossom gathered from the tree outside was scattered across the room until the floor was almost entirely covered.
The actions left an installation of remnants: blossom, fragments of text and a long material line extending through the space.
THE CONTINUING THREAD
The line continues beyond the room.
The work considered how stories, instructions and institutional spaces participate in shaping identity—particularly the learned behaviours and expectations attached to femininity.
Seen retrospectively, it introduced concerns that continue throughout Blunt’s practice: the line as both material and narrative, embodied memory, female experience, repetition, ritual and the remains left behind by an action.
ARCHIVE
Original proposal and documentation
Originally presented as A Nostalgic Reminder of School Experiences.
The proposal records the initial intentions for the performance. Some proposed components were altered or omitted in the realised work.