Tamara Henderson
Vision 3: Flowering Transition (2018) Durational Performance

Taking place on the one night per week that the nocturnal Flower Market is closed, Henderson’s performance replaces the trading activity of wholesalers and buyers with a cast of eight characters. Their slow procession through the corridors of the shuttered market is a choreography that evolves according to an inverted, nighttime clock.

Constructed from materials found at the Flower Market, each character is conceived as a sculpture for the body to be inhabited and articulated; its voice amplified. The characters derive from aspects of the life-cycle of the plants and flowers, from their origins in seeds to the elemental sources of light, earth and water, incorporating symbology and language as well as the frenetic activity of the florist. 

Henderson features in the performance, which is conceived as a choreography for film, operating a Bolex camera – the character of the ‘eye’ – and playing witness to the night’s activity.

Tamara Henderson (b. 1982, Canada) makes work in media including sculpture, installation, painting and performance, using a logic and form are underpinned by her practice in 16mm filmmaking. Henderson draws on disciplines including psychoanalysis, hypnotic induction and ethnobotany in her research and production. Rooted in avant-garde theatre and performance, her practice is distinctive in its bodily, mechanical tone and represents a singular voice in the digital clutter of our contemporary world.

New Covent Garden Market is London’s original – and the UK’s largest – fresh produce market. It has been supplying London with fruit, vegetables and flowers for hundreds of years, first originating in Covent Garden in 1670, before moving to its new home in Nine Elms in 1974.