Performance Live Transmissions

Morgan O’Hara’s Live Transmission series operates at the intersection of forensic precision and empathic resonance, capturing movement in real time through a near-seismographic drawing process. Her work has documented world-renowned conductors, dancers such as Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown, as well as performance and sound artists from the New York and Japanese avant-garde scenes since the 1970s.

At Galleria dei Gondolieri, O’Hara documented master artisan Saverio Pastor, one of Venice’s last fórcole* makers, as he carved these intricate wooden rowlocks. In particular Saverio Pastor’s fórcole are a further step towards the refinement of the surfaces and in the search for increasingly bold forms. 

Saverio’s son, sound artist Tiziano Pastor, responded with a live soundscape drawn from their family archive—an intimate, palpable yet ephemeral dialogue of skill, devotion, and love between father and son.

This performance marked the opening of Live Transmissions from Venice, a solo exhibition at EdB Contemporary featuring O’Hara’s drawings alongside rare fórcole crafted by Saverio Pastor.

The performance was documented by a British film-maker Candida Richardson and to be screened as a part of the show. 

*The Venetian fórcole are the end result of centuries of refinement of the simple oarlocks used in the Veneto lagoons: the oars became thinner, the morsi (hollows) became tighter; expensive woods are now used instead of the recuperated wood, above all the sanca (the elbow-shaped part) was invented to facilitate rowing in the narrow Venetian canals.

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