Claire Blundell Jones (UK): Introducing Tumbleweed to the Finnish Landscape

Over Friday, Saturday and Sunday the artist will escort a tumbleweed through the streets of Kuopio, propelling it along with a garden leaf-blower. This three-day performance investigates what the tumbleweed represents as it rolls, destination unknown, out of the mythical American West and along the streets of a Finnish city. We may have heard of tumbleweeds, we may have seen them rolling in cowbow movies during particularly tense scenes, a moment much parodied in comedies like The Simpsons – but have we ever seen one in reality? For the artist tumbleweeds denote desolation, awkwardness, embarrassment, and tension. They are a symbol of alienation; looking ‘out-of-place’ to varying degrees in different sites, becoming a visual metaphor for internal struggles and conflicts.
Look out for the tumbleweed as it makes its journey around Kuopio perhaps you’ll follow for it for hours, perhaps it will follow you…

Claire Blundell Jones creates performances, photography, installations, videos and interactive socially- based works. She creates work mainly in the public realm, which develops directly out of the relationships built between the audience and herself. Claire has previously performed in public places (parks, busy central streets, city centres) with/without specially made props, and has changed her behaviour (such as asking for hugs) in order to gain and explore relationships with strangers. These performances are created to respond or to comment on how we relate to one another in public. Throughout this work, she often deals with the themes of emotional neediness and comfort, personal space, alienation and flirtation.