I was introduced to Monique Redmond's PhD thesis The Event within Temporary Practices and the Public Social by my supervisor Sally Mannall. Redmond's durational and event-based social practice derives from "everyday activities and noticing", with plants and particularly flowers, being a central focus as the "social conduits" that she circulates to faciliate moments 'that set the scene for durational reciprocal actions and sets of relations that organise and facilitate participatory modes of noticing and appreciation.'1
It is from her work that I have borrowed the term ephemera to describe the material elements that are generated from the different processes of my practice. Her work is explicitly social, in that it relies on participation and engagement to substantiate itself, whereas not all iterations of my practice are aimed at engaging others. For example, the mindfulness ritual I enact that utilises plants within my everyday environment as a visual prompt, is barely even observable let alone exhibited or extended to others, unless elaborated upon in some way, such as being documented. It is important to me that this ritual is not always documented so that it can remain a private rather than performative enactment, for my experience only, and perhaps best understood as an act of self-care.
Monique Redmond, The Event with Temporary Practices and the Public Social, Ph.D. thesis, School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University: 9. Accessed 3 April 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30148103
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