March – Update – Mr Bobotrov

   

I found this crazy looking beast on Etsy. I had been trying to get a stuffed white mountain hare from various hunting, shooting forums and websites but with no luck, so when I found this one I jumped at it, even though its a wee bit on the strange side!

He was stuffed in Russia so I’m guessing he is a Russian blue hare or also known as the tundra hare or variable hare all the way form the Russian Steppes.

My son Ioan called him Mr Bobotrov – the only Russian name he knows from one of his books – and its stuck

He’s part of the family now, he is our look out/guard hare perched on my dads old modelling stand in the window..but he’ waiting for his adventure..when he will be mounted and cased up and attached to my back..

Myself, Mr Bobotrov and the 5 other collaborators will do a 22-hour durational performance/camp in September 2019. Each collaborator has been invited to generate discipline specific material in situ throughout the 22-hour cycle in response to my crawling performance, the landscape and the Mountain hare. I will be crawling (as I did in Crossed Paths – Wales as a sheep/human cyborg) as a hare/human cyborg collecting 22 hours of film footage on 22 GoPro cameras attached to my body. All 6 collaborators will loosely follow the four behavioural patterns of the Mountain hare over a 22-hour cycle. They will:

  • rest (sleep) in a form (tent)
  • feed on hot food and drinks
  • move around the surrounding area
  • groom (wash) when they emerge from resting in the forms (tents).

The Mountain hare is mostly nocturnal so more active at sunset and night. They spend the majority of their time resting in open areas of land with an overview of the surrounding area or in forms, seats or scrapes. They make their forms in tall heather, their seats in shorter heather or snow, and their scrapes in snow or peat.(1) Their feeding mostly takes place at sunset and night, they move around open areas to and from their resting places and forms and they groom mostly before emerging from their resting places. The hares have a small repertoire of mannerisms which we will loosely adopt; a high five (four finger) stretch, a face rub, feeding on heather or pellet grabbing, rolling in the snow (which won’t apply in spring), yawning and running. (2) we will crawl/film, write, photograph, compose and record over the 22-hour period. The experiences, ideas, thoughts and behaviour of each individual will be recorded by GPS and clip mic sound recorders attached to each collaborator.