In the beginning... was an installation and performance work for a group exhibition in the Devonport Regional Gallery that focussed on 'the communicative power of materials in contemporary art'. (Jane Stewart, 2005)

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In my work, I often use the book as a visual motif becuase it represents so many of the concepts I am interested in exploring through my practice: knowledge, history, turth, culture, education, wisdom and authority. The packages of book pages that make up In the beginning...  are ripped from their original bindings and rebound in such a way that they cannot be read. Paradoxically, they deny access to the knowledge, truth and wisdom they promise to contain. The performative aspect of the work explores the limitations of language using ritual and repetition. I wrote the phrase In the beginning... over and over on the pages of the stacked books in front of my small writing desk. This repetitive act turns the words we use to express ourselves and our ideas into an abstraction, questioning whether it is possible for accumulated history and kowledge to reflect indivudal experience. I chose the phrase In the beginning... because it evokes both the power of the word and the past functions of the the Devonport Regional Gallery as a church and a library. 

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