homerun

Bodyverses is an ongoing series of short films shot on Super 8mm and 16mm, featuring established and emerging performance artists based Ireland and Northern Ireland. The series includes key figures who have shaped the performance art landscape since 1975, using their bodies as a medium to explore personal, cultural, and societal complexities. These films reflect on the enduring significance of performance art—its commitment to presence, simple yet powerful actions, body language, and the transformation of everyday or found materials. They also explore themes of healing and connection, addressing personal and collective trauma, while fostering intimate engagement with audiences in public space. The project highlights performance art’s intertwined influence across Ireland and Northern Ireland, shaping artistic discourse both locally and internationally.

In 2nd Lock, Frances Mezzetti explored her lifelong relationship with her younger sister Maria, and began to release the deep sense of responsibility and guilt that had shaped her since childhood. This emotional burden traces back to a major surgery Maria underwent at the age of two—a moment that had a lasting impact on the family dynamic.

Now, as Maria faces a critical stage in her health, Frances continues to carry much of the emotional and practical caregiving, as she has throughout their lives.

Through performance and film, Frances seeks to honour this shared history while creating space for recognition, transformation, and release.

The collaboration unfolded during Maria’s transition from her home to hospital, and later to a nursing home. It also included the process of clearing out her house in preparation for rent. In parallel, Frances prepared a site-specific performance at the Second Lock on the Grand Canal at Goldenbridge—where the Mezzetti family once lived—as well as a spontaneous performance in her Drumcondra studio.

Over the course of a year, we met regularly and recorded on six occasions image and sound. While the nursing home visits were not filmed, they were central to our process—providing space for reflection, grounding the emotional tone of the work, and deepening the bond that shaped what ultimately emerged on film.

- Cork International Film Festival, Ireland

- La Inesperada Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain

- Irish Film Institute, Dublin, Ireland

Nalam Nalam focuses on Alastair MacLennan, a pioneering performance artist since the early 1970s, whose “actuations” use the body to explore personal, cultural, and societal complexities. MacLennan’s practice also encompasses drawing, installation, and the use of found objects and materials, often integrated into his performances. He has performed internationally, represented Ireland at the 1997 Venice Biennale, and collaborated with performance collectives including Black Market International.

The film traces the cyclical nature of MacLennan’s artistic practice, from creation and performance to legacy. He is present in his Belfast studio, emphasizing impermanence, chance, and transformation through his meditative painting process, and in excerpts from Bbeyond’s monthly group performances, an organisation he co-founded and has actively engaged with since early 2000.

A central thread of the film is the pilgrimage from Belfast—where he lives and has worked for decades—to his birthplace in Blair Atholl and the nearby mountain, Carn Liath, and then to Dundee, where he studied and donated his extensive ‘living archive.’ The film is process-driven, using this journey to explore the emotional, historical, and conceptual dimensions of MacLennan’s persona and work. This psychogeographic approach mirrors the act of seeking understanding through travel, with the landscapes reflecting the rhythms, continuity, and interconnectedness of his practice. In these sequences, he is physically absent, allowing the landscapes, archival materials, and the young artist Calum Eccleston to interact with the space through performance, thereby communicating and embodying his legacy.

By highlighting MacLennan’s group performances with Bbeyond and the donation of his archive as a research and artistic resource—where a young artist performs—the film situates his work within a broader legacy of creative generosity, ethical engagement, and the ongoing transmission of ideas across generations.

With the support of

The Alastair MacLennan Archive

BBeyond

- La Inesperada Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain

- Irish Film Institute, Dublin, Ireland