Marta Moriarty is an artist and curator based in Madrid. ‘The Ledge of Sadness’, is a Long Minute that plays with time, language, and presence.

In Moriarty’s words: “It is home-made, just me, late at night, on the back stairway to our flat in Madrid. My cell phone camera perched on a kitchen stool on the tiny stair landing, I switch on the countdown for 10 seconds and begin, I’m running up and down the stairs like a crazy person, again and again. I love doing it, the repetition, the text soaking into me, the effort of my untrained body, the bare loneliness in the bare stairway, the cold light, the silence of the city, as it has been for the past two months, my husband sleeping upstairs and safe.

This is my text which I recite in Spanish:

Juego en el alero de la tristeza
Donde mirar hacia el fondo es tan doloroso que me hace reír.
Rutinas contra el olvido
Lejía contra el miedo,
Amor frente a tu letal vacío.
Y la esperanza de que aún en la derrota no saldré vencida
Porque la alegría seguirá conmigo.

And my english translation:

I play on the ledge of sadness
Where looking at the bottom is so painful that it makes me laugh
Routines against oblivion
Bleach against fear
Love facing your lethal void.
And the hope that even in defeat I will not be defeated
for joy will stand by me.”

Concept & Performance | Marta Moriarty
Curator of The Long Minute | Bronwyn Lace