Lusciousness and Decay - or a Pile of Old Pinotage?

After fermenting red grapes the new wine is pressed from the grape skins which are usually recycled back to the vineyards as fertiliser. But at Windmuel they have been piled high for an art project.


Artist Berni Searle has filmed herself "precariously on top of a huge mound of crushed red grape skins that have been spurted out from an overhead funnel. En masse the grape skins form a sensuous reddish purple backdrop, simultaneously evoking lusciousness and decay.

Shot mainly in slow motion, at dusk and dawn, the work has a contemplative dreamlike quality which is disrupted by an unexpected series of 'falls'. While the work alludes to the traditional process of crushing grapes with one's feet, this ritual enactment becomes futile since the juice of the grapes has already been extracted, pointing to a more symbolic/evocative reading of ideas relating to abundance, excess and vulnerability. "


See http://www.michaelstevenson.com/contemporary/exhibitions/current/current.htm