The great medieval philosopher Thomas Moore once stated that “all work on the soul takes the form of a circle, a rotatio.” Based on his words, American artist Shannon Mackenzie decided to purge herself from the most traumatic experience of her life —rape— by drawing a circle where she entrapped this life story.
The piece was aptly called Rotatio, and it started out as a performance piece where she drew a circle composed by miniature tick marks where she entrapped the memories of the night of her abuse in fragments of prose. The act lasted more than two weeks, and the artist spent 33 hours drawing the lines and writing the narrative that reminded her of her traumatic experience.
Armed with only a sharpie, the artist transformed it into the tool to exorcize herself from her haunting past. Drawing thousands of marks became a meditation, a circle, a mandala. Writing in detail all of her traumatic memories, Mackenzie pulled her story of abuse out of her body and gave it a new home amongst the tally marks on the wall. By pouring her past in ink, she found a way to sail past them.
The story within the marks of Mackenzie’s Rotatio is rich in detail, and she even includes the name of her rapist. This decision, however, was not motivated by ill will, but the attempt to make the story more real and without any censorship. To her, this piece represented her telling the world of her whole traumatic experience, rather than only a diluted version of the facts.
Mackenzie’s meticulous work circled her painful memories and anxiety. It was a ritual to set her free from the trauma that rape brought into her life.
All in all, Mackenzie’s performance was a beautiful demonstration of meditative detachment. It was documented by Ian McClerin and herself in a short film also called Rotatio, in which we can all see the artist in the studio drawing line after line on the white wall. Because of the heartfelt portrayal of the performance, it even managed to make its way into renowned festivals, such as the New York Film Festival and the AFI documentary Film Festival.
Rotatio from Ian McClerin on Vimeo.
The artist, surprisingly, singed while she is doing the piece. Her songs, unlike her experience, sound smooth and joyful. It’s as if in the process of making the piece she was already freeing herself from the past.
After finishing the circle, the artist covered everything in white paint. This way, she was able to convert it into a transitory existence, letting go of the experience. Covering the piece means finally accepting the past, but pulling it away.
Rotatio is a piece about growth, forgiveness and, more importantly, looking forward to the future without clinging to the past. Watching Mackenzie covering walls with her painful experience and afterwards covering it up feels like watching a surgeon extracting a tumor out of a body.
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If, like Shannon Mackenzie, you want to close cycles in your life, check out the 6 ways that will help you find closure according to psychology. Performance, however, can sometimes end in tragedy. Learn about the 5 performance artists who were abused during their acts.
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References
Huff Post
Shannon May Mackenzie
