Say Yes to Me. Or Penguins, Provocation and Bulging Hope

Moira Finucane*

Abstract

In 2020, environmental scientist, beyond-genre theatre maker and “internationally acclaimed empress of provocative variety” Moira Finucane was to return to Antarctica as part of her Art vs. Extinction suite of works. Instead, in the most locked down city in the world, she got into her bathtub and made a work on penguins, propaganda, hope and visceral transformation that travelled the world via Zoom. Rapture Bathtub created a magic realist communal commemoration of mass mortality that put over one thousand trees in the ground and continues still. The work continues and you are invited to . . . say yes.

Keywords: art and activism, ecological mourning, pandemic creativity, reforestation, digital performance

“*The Rapture* has always been envisioned as a suite of work rather than a show.” Collage by Vanessa Fernandez

Part 1: The Bar

I sat in a bar in Miami, drinking a mojito with a woman I met in Cuba. She ran a climate art festival called Climakaze; beautiful, powerful, wildly enthusiastic. She asked me to bring her a provocation for her festival. I drank two mojitos at midnight, right off a 23-hour flight, and the world faded out to just us, just talking, and I said yes. It started a journey that has taken me across the globe to see krill, to see penguins, to see humans shaking with hope and fear, to see my own hope, to hold it in my hands and hope for more.

Moira Finucane’s *The Rapture* in Antarctica. Photo: Scott Portelli

Part 2: The Darkness

When I was in Antarctica, I learned a lesson of steadfastness in the face of darkness.

I want to share it with you.

Here it is.

Moira Finucane’s *The Rapture* *Bathtub* as part of her *Art vs Extinction* suite. Photo: Jodie Hutchinson & TearItUp

The Penguin Story

Part 3: The Provocation

I came up with a provocation for the festival, and it became a provocation for my life. It hit me like a brick. A life’s work: Art vs. Extinction. Art vs. Extinction. Extinction meaning of all kinds. Culture, country, species, language, spirit, joy, bodily autonomy, hope, rights, you name it. And Art meaning that which is generated in the realm of the imagination. Stories, paintings, songs, music, dance, experiences and more.

I sat in the snow on Hydrurga Rocks in Western Antarctica and watched a massive seabird: a giant petrel ruffled her feathers like a fairy tale before disappearing into the whiteness. I saw seven tiny krill in the water hanging on to the fast-moving ice. I saw a bay filled with pieces of ice—ice of all ages—black ice, blue ice, clink together into the gathering pancake ice as the winter arrived.

I saw the Weddel sea. “Antarctica, I love you!” I cried as I dived into the water, feeling that I would fall to the bottom of the deepest ocean in the world.

I didn’t, but we are all falling.

All falling into the sea as it rises and tears us limb from limb, alongside fires and hurricanes, while powerful wealthy men, and it is mostly men (Oxfam notes that globally, men now own US$105 trillion more wealth than women, and at current rates of progress it will take 257 years to close the gender pay gap^[1]), hurry the extinction, our extinction, countless extinctions, too grossly arrogant and ignorant and violent to know their own connectedness—that in the end, they, too, will perish, no matter the thickness of the bunker walls. Because they, too, just like we, too, just like me, too, are connected to the krill.

Part 4: Say Yes To Me

I am an artist, a mother, a daughter, a sister, from Irish Catholic stock. I am a dreamer, a hoper, an environmental scientist, a human rights leader, a queer and an unrealist. A Burlesque Queen, a gothic monster, a bit of a diva. I am famous in what I think is a fairly small way—“Praise for her work is always justifiably embellished with superlatives . . . and a type of mysticism . . . the black matter of burlesque, a bower bird across artforms, pecking the eyes from culture to create indelible visions of humanity, joy, power and desire”^[2]—but I am proud to say my work has been seen in 19 countries, that my company (yep, I have one) lifts lesser-heard voices at every step, which is not only the right thing to do, but creates such richness that why wouldn’t you? And that we have won many, many awards.

I really love awards, and my favourite ones are a Golden Potato from a rural community, Melbourne Living Legend and Special Event of the Year Australia from the hospitality sector. And since hospitality, creating legendary art and community are at the heart of my art, I reckon that’s rocking.

Also, you need to know that my boldness as a woman has irritated the fuck out of some folks (I hope you don’t become one of them). Here are three comments that have stayed with me over the years. From a critic: “Moira Finucane is an artist who has made a career of walking across a stage slowly looking important whilst doing nothing.” From a stranger on social media: “You can’t hide the bulge” (the photo is below, decide for yourself). And from almost every gatekeeper I have ever met, in response to my brilliant artistic ideas: “No.”

To the first. I ask you, how many women get the opportunity to look important whilst doing nothing, when so frequently, we are undervalued whilst doing everything? I’ll take it.

To the second. Those four words “you can’t hide the bulge,” communicate so many things about me and the commenter and the world we live in. Most obviously, they try to undermine my status or credibility as a “real” woman by implying that I am trans (so what?). Then they imply that I am trying to hide something and am therefore a liar (I’m not). But perhaps worst of all, they imply that I must think I am beautiful by posting such an image, when I am not (due to the bulge). Versions of this have been shared with me across my life. I say fuck off. Of course I am stunning, we know this, because everyone who is not mean is stunning.

And the third. The third has taught me the art of defiance and the extraordinary power of Yes.

That’s me. That’s where I come from. You can’t hide the bulge. On with the provocation.

Right now, I ask myself, every single day, can art really fight extinction on the planetary battlefield between hope and the final lesson that you can’t eat money (except chocolate coins—kids are so wise)?

And my proposition, my challenge, my hope, is: Yes.

Please say yes to me for 12 minutes and 2,900 words.

You’ll change the world. I promise. I’m not mucking around.

Read this to the end.

Make a Penguin.

Do the task.

Say Yes to Me.

If you hate it (or end up hating me), you will not have wasted much time. Like the old woman in the fairy tale who promises magic in return for a small favour, I ask you to give me something small in return for a visceral story that will truly change the world in ways you cannot know, and that will live longer than you do.

Just give me the time of your day.

Moira Finucane Queen Provocateur Global Smash Club. Photo: Jodie Hutchinson & Tear It Up

Part 5: About the Penguins

Emperor penguins nest on sea ice on the fringes of Antarctica. The sea ice doubles the size of Antarctica each winter. The sea ice is melting.

A mass mortality event is an event in which a vast number of individuals of a single species die. These events seem to be on the rise, linked to climate change.^[3]

In 2016, 10,000 Emperor penguin chicks died in a mass mortality event when the sea ice on which they were nested melted too quickly. The chicks, who had not grown their waterproof swimming feathers, drowned.

I went to Antarctica.

I went to the sea where their bodies are now nutrients and memories.

I wanted to go back. But we all locked down. So, in 2020, I made a work in my bathtub commemorating the penguins, speaking of propaganda, and truth, and rising sea levels. And fairy tales.

In fairy tales, small kindnesses and small cruelties have epic consequences. So, too, it is in real life. In the face of a tsunami of hate, fear, propaganda, oppression, wealth accumulation, planet-burning activities, patriarchy, and all the intersecting horror, small activities are powerful.

So, I got into my small bathtub. And with my partner Jackie Smith (our company’s genius co-director) filming me, and pianist Rachel Lewindon (our genius composer) accompanying me remotely from her backyard studio, and the sounds I had recorded so many thousands of kilometres south all around me, I made a small work about ice, propaganda, truth, melting and penguins. It was 100% live, beamed around the world via Zoom, jumping from bathtub to studio to the audience showing their penguins. Australia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Mexico and the United States, people even gathered in a theatre in Copenhagen to watch me in my bathroom. There are still penguins in that theatre, waiting for me to return.

But I didn’t just want to talk about how fucked things were and how sad it is to have your home melt when you don’t have the feathers to cope, or wings that can fly (Emperor penguins’ Latin name is Aptenodytes forsteri, which translates as Divers Without Wings). I wanted to create visceral hope, with people across the world who were locked down, isolated, with friends and family dying.

I wanted to give something small to those penguins and to people who are losing hope, and through that process, start to “repopulate” the colony. I partnered with an amazing organisation called 15 Trees and asked,” If people make a penguin, will you put a tree in the ground?”

15 Trees said Yes.

So far, 1,188 penguins have been made, and 1,188 trees have been planted. You can read about that first project at this link. My aim is to get to 10,000 trees. Then, we will have redeemed those lives and ourselves with 10,000 small acts. Here is the trailer of that work.

The trailer

Part 6: I Need You to Make a Penguin

Draw. Knit. Origami. Sketch. Just make one.

Why?

Many people I know who believe in the power of art to transform are in deep despair, wondering whether they just made that shit up, and whether doing art right now is just prancing around looking fabulous—or making obscure pieces of shit that important people think are important, but are they really?—while wars rage and people die. Or whether they are fiddling while Rome is burning, as, indeed, is everything else.

If you feel like this, make a penguin, as a transformative act and a vote for hope.

This act will cost you absolutely nothing, last longer than your life and will take only a little time and some potential creative awkwardness.

Please make it, photograph it, and send it here.

I will receive it, and three magical, visceral, transformative, practical things will happen.

Firstly, a native tree will be planted in my home country, Australia. Near a penguin colony. And, most likely, that tree will still be growing when you are gone.

Secondly, I will write to you personally and share a message of hope.

Thirdly, you will commemorate, respect, and symbolically repopulate the Emperor penguin colony decimated by the mass mortality event of 2016.

And you will have changed the world. For the better.

Just like that.

The penguins will never know of your act, but future penguins will, because the trees will help the world, and penguins, survive and thrive. It’s an ecosystem. You are part of it. Simple.

For this article, five years after the initial project, I got back into the bath to tell you the story of ice, auks and divers without wings. It will cost you nothing. It’s twelve minutes long. Come on, click here, get in the bath with me. It may transform your life. Say yes to me.

Rapture Bathtub

Part 7: The Closing

When I was writing this Jackie my partner said “Hey, tell me more about the bulge, how is that important here?” And that made me think about it . . .

I was born a girl, and I have spent my entire life fighting for what I want that to look like, what I want to be able to be. That’s my life experience, but that’s not what this is about. Do I have a dick? I wasn’t born with one, and I don’t have one now, so I don’t claim that life experience, I claim my own, but that’s not what this is about. This is about all kinds of women, wherever their bulges may be, not being allowed to exist as the women, the humans they want to be. I see it for me, I see it for my trans friends, I see it for tiny kids and for old women. This is about being “too much.” And why is that relevant? Because everything is connected, and forcing people away from passion, change, beauty, courage and a better planet happens mostly in these thousand cuts, these creations of fear and othering and accusations of ugliness, these endless distractions to the bigger questions, these constant drownings of the small and the vulnerable, the clipping of wings before they are even ready to fly.

In my life, I want to claim beauty for the ugly-fied, significance for the insignificant, celebration for the under-celebrated; I want to claim the future for hope, not for othering, so we can get on together with what’s important, without getting unnecessarily flustered by bulge speculation.

Having said that . . .

I can feel you reaching for your paper and pencil. Or your knitting needles. Or your clay, or something I don’t know about yet . . . My heart is pounding in my chest. I look down and I think to myself: “Look at my hope growing! I know they are creating a penguin!” My heart leaps out of my chest and I know it’s true. You just can’t hide the bulge.

Here are some other people’s penguins. You can watch them while you make your own.

Penguin Parade

Part 8: The Epilogue, a Final Gift

Because I am too much, and the devil is in the details, because fear is a great alert system but it’s not the way out, I want to offer you a final gift. You have the tree. You have my thoughts. You have my bulge. But you can also have my Cards of Hope. If you would like them. Here’s a picture of one of them below. And I can send you a set with your letter.

Just put up your hand for hope. Keep going.

References and Thanks

Climakaze Miami (U.S.A.) was and is the creation of visionary Elizabeth Doud. “Moira Finucane’s The Rapture: Art vs. Extinction” premiered for Climakaze 2017. Elizabeth has travelled with me as a source of inspiration, collaboration and provocation for ten years. Elizabeth is now the Currie Kohlman Curator of Performance at The John and Mable Ringling Museum Florida, and we collaborate still.

I went to Antarctica in 2019 with two powerful mentors: Dr. John Bailey, my environmental science mentor for 30 years, and Dr. Bev Theile, an expert in gender and humanity, also a powerful mentor.

I am epically grateful for the buy-in, guidance and support of Antarctic expedition leaders, Dr. Gary Miller and Dr. Robyn Mundy.

Dr. Roger Kirkwood was interviewed in Antarctica, and after we returned. I recorded his story in lockdown, and the words are his. I first told the story in 2020 in “I Miss You Antarctica,” commissioned by Arts Centre Melbourne and Melbourne Fringe (read about it here). Rapture Bathtub went on to feature in Finucane and Smith Winter Season (2021), Copenhagen Stage Festival (2021) and Pause Play Perform (2023).

The music you hear throughout the works is created by composer Rachel Lewindon, who took the field recordings that I made in Antarctica and created the most beautiful scapes for me to inhabit.

15 Trees is an extraordinary Australian community-based organisation that helps people, groups and companies offset carbon, despair and hopelessness by planting indigenous trees at sites around Australia. The trees are all sourced from native nurseries and planted by experienced community groups. Established in 2009 and founded by environmental scientist Colleen Filippa, 15 Trees has put 463,000 trees in the ground and helped over 500 community revegetation projects. So, buy a tree in Australia, fix carbon and fix the planet.

Scott Portelli, a wildlife photographer, took the photos of me in Antarctica. They are not retouched; it was really that beautiful and snowing. The other images are photographed by Jodie Hutchinson, who has captured our company artists for 20 years, working with digital artist Vanessa Fernandez. The Bathtub and bookshelf footage were made on my phone by Jackie Smith.

Cover photo: Moira Finucane’s The Rapture in Antarctica. Photo: Scott Portelli.

Endnotes

^[1] See here.

^[2] The Wheeler Centre for Writing and Ideas.

^[3] See here; also here.

Photo by Simon Schluter.
Courtesy of Fairfax

*Moira Finucane is a writer, creator, performer and “Living Legend” of Unrealistic Art. With a background in environmental science and human rights, her company, the house of Finucane and Smith Unlimited creates “salons of humanity”—intimate theatrical spectacles, drama, beyond-genre cabaret and provocative variety. Finucane and Smith are recipient of 9 Green Room Awards, International Theatre Institute’s CHAMACO Award for International Presentation of the Year 2015 (Cuba), Seleccionan Los Villanueva (Cuba) and The Golden Potato for cultural services to rural communities; Finucane’s Art vs. Extinction suite was chosen for Australian Exhibit Prague Quadrennial 2019; and inaugural Creative Fellowships of National Gallery Victoria and Museums Victoria.