A solo exhibition and booklet by Hannah Hull a.k.a. Burning Salt

My first somatic vision arrived spontaneously in 2017 whilst in Amsterdam. One afternoon I lay down on the apartment bed, the balcony doors ajar, a Spring breeze moving across my body. I was tired, and trying to recover some energy for the evening ahead by meditating. As I drifted along the edge of consciousness, I suddenly found myself within a dark cave: a space I had never seen before, yet knew completely. I could taste the weight of salt air, feel the cave’s darkness on my skin. A tangible silence contained something like magic, absorbing parts of me I no longer needed.

That was my song space, I thought as I came to. This was the only language I had at that time for what I had experienced. That was the place my songs came from. I have written songs since I got my first guitar aged 13. (Or perhaps I have received songs since I was 13, since they mostly arrive involuntarily during times when I need clarity or guidance… my automatic lullabies.) I documented the vision with a poem; the last two lines of which form the title of this show.

On the other side of this breakthrough came a collapse. The following night, triggered by the sound of footsteps in the apartment above, I had a panic attack that lasted over 24 hours. Fearful of psychiatric intervention in a foreign country, my friends dosed me up and escorted me home on the next flight to the UK. I was later diagnosed with C-PTSD.

These two events – the vision and the attack – marked the beginning of a significant reckoning with deeply stored pain; and an even deeper beauty. Were they connected? I can’t say for certain… but I do know these spaces have danced closely with each other ever since.

Over the coming months and years, the trauma pushing itself through into my daily life was only manageable alongside the respite that somatic meditation gave me. The beauty of these visions allowed me to re-connect with my body during a time when I was periodically disassociating from it. They gave me insights into the fabric of the pain, and glimpses of a whole universe beneath it: a space both of the body and beyond it, found within it and through it.

So many stories are stored in our bodies; we live alongside them every day. Beneath them is something universal, found in all of us. Something like the ocean, or a galaxy, or the weather.

In somatic meditation, I sit and allow feelings to arise, or be noticed, seen, felt, witnessed, sensed. I try to find the right words to express what I am experiencing… the textures, shapes, movements. Sometimes objects form, sometimes plants or animals. Clouds, wind, terrain. The cosmos, a moon. Sometimes there is growth, restriction, release. Weather changes, mists clear or descend. Forms shift, shapes morph. Seeds, stones, stars. Cliffs and caves. Darkness deepens in colour. A heart flower blooms.

This show is both about trauma and beyond trauma. It contains both reckoning and reprise. It is made up of songs, poems, drawings, videos and animations I have created through my ongoing journeys into the universe of the somatic...via the continent of pain.

This project was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England