The British Art Show -
Old Allegiances And New Directions 1979-84
By Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton
[...]
Alastair MacLennan's
twelve-hour performance and installation, Birth Death Day, attempted
to evoke a psychological and physical awareness of a primal sense of
being in his audience. MacLennan, black garbed and blackened from head
to foot, moved through the environment he created - a silent temple
with the objects of ritual: dead fish, pigs' feet, tails and ears, circles
of blood, cups of water, the pungent odour of decay - like a figure
from the underworld ritually marking time, making time palpable. MacLennan,
like Avis Newman, attempts to recover a pre-symbolic world.
[...]