'Si'thi/e' / Look here! / See you later! A residency and soon to be exhibition. Across some of Yorkshire's landmark locations BLOAT explored collective bonding through a performative appropriation of gaming. Gaming represents one of the oldest social heirlooms for bonding; common features of games include rules / word of mouth / fiction / chance / prescribed goals / personal enjoyment and uncertainty of outcome. 

 

Prior to the residency, BLOAT created ‘recreational clothing,’ developed an extensive body of research on folk games, natural sites people gravitate to, artists - authors and filmmakers connected to games, rural communities and land politics.

 

This project, SITHEE, is a culmination of this research with filmed performances made during the residency where members of BLOAT embodied equal ‘players’ to self-led ‘games’ across uncanny sites for ‘sport’.

 

The situations and settings we chose became the performance and stage for this series of video works. Every game plan and activity recorded, rests on a history of BLOAT’s communication, preliminary research, mode of transport and intuition response to natural features of the land. 

 

These histories are captured in flux, resulting in a series of unique and nuanced imagery, a BLOAT allegory of the strength and enjoyment of collective practice.