W/w: A Performance by Sarah Long

Sarah Long’s W/w follows the trials and triumphs of Mary, an aspiring artist and writer, in conflict withthe world around her. Confined to the porch of her family home, Mary’s consciousnesssearches for a new form, a larger space, to occupy. A bildungsroman a couple of years too late, a homecoming when she’s never left home, a Künstlerroman in denial, a neurosis; W/w is a work of autofiction that spins out into the space of the world.⁠

Mary’s monologue helps her to forge her way in the world as she works in solitude. Her consciousness floats through different scenes of her life and recalls times where she encounters the limitations of space in her everyday–from the classroom, to art galleries and changing rooms. What happens when you leave ‘a room of one’s own’? When you feel too big to be contained? The porch acts as a white cube, a screen, a place where the artist is contained, observed, consumed, on display, protected, safe and consecrated: an extimacy. Situated in rural Ireland, Mary looks out at the large expanse of the landscape and desires to lie down, spread out and be heard.

‘It weaves through the conflict of ideas versus actualisation; of money and artistic penury, of the current housing and rental crisis in Ireland, issues of delayed adulthood/lack of self-actualisation when a generation has no choice but to live at home with their parents; of how to fund a creative life, and why we make the things we do.’ Sinéad Gleeson

‘Long writes with a singular kind of elasticity and clarity; with curiosity and black humour.’ Sara Baume