'No holiday' - Dorsoduro, Venice

A trip to see the 2017 edition of the Venice Biennale gave me the opportunity to take my 'No holiday' performance there to continue the journey.

After spending a few days becoming accustomed to the city, I decided to focus on crossing bridges that span canals in the city. This action relates to the geography of the city and at the same time it captures the often repeated activity as people move through the space of the city.

I chose the quiet district of Dorsoduro win which to perform, starting close to Piazzale Roma and making my way south towards the university district of the city, crossing small bridges along the way.

The sounds of boats and barges making their way around the canals was very relaxing and at one point the movements of a small boat and myself walking became perfectly synchronised as I crossed a bridge. The boats owner whistled just before making a 90 degree turn into another canal, obviously to warn other craft, but it almost seemed as though he whistled to signal the synchronisation of our movement.

Eventually I discovered a lovely church that could form a natural conclusion to the walk, the Chiesa dell'Angelo Raffaele, in which I found paintings by the renowned Venetian artist GianAntonio Guardi. The performance ended as I picked up my red suitcase and entered the church.

'No holiday' - Dorsoduro, Venice, Italy - 16th August 2017

The recording can also be viewed on my youtube.com channel here: https://youtu.be/_LRaVkdBqBA

No holiday

I have edited a recorded version of my performance 'No holiday' that formed part of my preparation for participation in two performance art festivals, the Duration and Dialogue II Festival in Toronto, Canada and the Inverse Performance Art Festival in North-west Arkansas, USA.

This 33 minute version was recorded on Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong.

Currently in the planning stage are further episodes of the 'No holiday' performance, including locations in the UK and Venice in Italy. News of these developments will be written up later in the year, as they happen.

'No holiday' - Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong - 28th January 2017

The recording can also be viewed on my youtube.com channel here: https://youtu.be/R4V5faOIX1w

Nam Tam Wan 2016 - Book Publication

Referring back to a previous post about the photographic project I am undertaking at Nam Tam Wan on Cheung Chau Island - Hong Kong, I have now finally arrived at a satisfactory format for the book of images I would like to publish.
I do not intend to print up multiple copies, instead I will present, exhibit and promote the book myself and I will only print copies upon request. This means the book is therefore not being produced commercially and the price cannot be reduced by large unit numbers.

Below I have attached low-resolution captures of the introduction and two pages of images.

If you are interested in purchasing copies of the book, please contact me using my email address: patricksford@live.com

The book is 8" x 10" 20 x 25cm, portrait format, 64 pages, 60 images, colour photos taken by phone camera, 1 image per page, title page, introduction page, blank page at the back, the hard-back cover is black with white lettering on the spine, spine text reads: Nam Tam Wan 2016 Patrick S. Ford

A review of the book as well as an interview I conducted with the 'Local Idea' section of the 'Lik Ink' website and blog can be found here: https://www.likink.com/patrick-s-ford/

Facebook Artwork Challenge

I was invited by a friend to take part in the Facebook Artwork Challenge. The challenge was to post 3 images each day for 5 days in a row and the trick for me was how to do it in an interesting and informative way.

I decided to sketch a rough outline of how my work has developed over the last 30 or so years. This is not easy using only 15 images but I managed to at least put some kind of a timeline into the range of examples, ending around 4 years ago. The work I have been doing since then will form the basis for a solo exhibition that I hope to arrange fairly soon.

The record of the 5 days postings can be found on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/patrick.s.ford

'Going Round in Circles', performance - Part 1

On Wednesday 30th July 2014 I plan to conduct a solo performance in Tai Tam Country Park, Hong Kong.
I will walk around a circular path, which leads around a small hill, from 9 to 5 - the archetypal working day, stopping for 15 minute breaks in the morning and afternoon and a 1 hour lunch break. I will carry tools that I will not use.
If I am part-way around a circuit when it is time for a break or lunch, I will continue to complete the circuit before beginning the break. The performance will go ahead whatever the weather, unless a typhoon No.8 signal is hoisted and I am unable to catch the ferry to get to the location.

At the end of the day, I will have spent the day traveling without getting anywhere and I will have carried tools without producing anything.

Saturday 18th May 2013 - 'Drawn from experience'

I was lucky enough to be invited to Saga University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan to give a lecture and lead a workshop on drawing.
The students were very hardworking and open minded, they were willing to try new things and their enthusiasm led to some interesting results in a short timeframe.

Kyoto is a wonderful city and on this, my 3rd trip, I managed to find time to visit some of my favorite places such as the Sanjusangen-do temple but I also managed to find some new places such as the lovely 'e-fish' cafe where I had lunch on Friday, the day before the workshop. I hope it is not too long before I return.

More information

Sanjusangendo is a temple in eastern Kyoto famous for its 1001 statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. It is believed that Kannon will assist humans in distress and lead them to enlightenment. 


The temple was founded in 1164 and rebuilt a century later after the original structure had been destroyed by fire in 1249. The rebuilding was completed in 1266.The temple hall at 120 meters is Japan's longest wooden structure. The name Sanjusangendo means literally "33 intervals" and is derived from the number of intervals between the building's support columns, which is a traditional method of measuring the size of a building.


Kannon is said to be able to assume any of thirty-three forms to be of aid, hence the building symbolically has thirty-three bays and is called the thirty-three ["sanju-san"] bay ["gen"] hall ["do"].


The large, wooden statue of Kannon sits in the center of the main hall (whose head was rescued from the fire along with 156 of the standing images) and is flanked on each side by 500 statues of human sized 1000-armed Kannon standing in ten rows. The sight of all these figures when entering the temple is unforgettable.


It is said that if you are patient and watch carefully, one statue will momentarily assume the form of a loved one.


From the Edo period onwards, an archery contest has been held on the west veranda of this temple.It has been said that a duel between the famous warrior Miyamoto Musashi and Yoshioka Denshichirō, leader of the Yoshioka-ryū was fought just outside Sanjūsangen-dō in 1604. This event has been imortalised in the film ‘Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple’, 1967 Dir. Hiroshi Inagaki.

Sanjusangen-do - more images

It is a pleasure simply to stroll around the grounds of this amazing temple in Kyoto.

Welcome to my blog! I lost my previous blog as I needed to delete my gmail account and I lost my blog at the same time. My previous blog was written under my name - Patrick S. Ford.

I have entitled my new blog '33 Temple' because after visiting Kyoto in Japan 3 times within 3 years, this temple has become rather special for me. It is not the most beautiful temple in Kyoto but for me it is the most spiritual. I have had many conversations with the spirits there.
I dedicate this blog to my new friends who live in Sanjusangen-do in Kyoto!