Exploring the body of a place through touch-based participatory performance-installations
This April, I presented ‘The Gut of A Place”, an experimental residency at space illi exploring different forms of participatory performance as a method of generating intimate knowledge of a place.
Four creative workshops focused on four different methodologies exploring touch as a way of connecting us to the ecology of our bodies, the body of a place and the bodies of each other. Each event blended interactive installation, ritual and sensory experience exploring listening, sound-making; smelling, tasting, collaging, moving and drawing.
The project is an experiment in eco-feminist process and practice - we will draw on the body and the senses to learn about ourselves, each other and our more-than human worlds. In the process we dismantle the concept of nature as something ‘outside’ and separate from us. We will co-create artworks together and all become artists, responding intuitively and responsively to the time and place, drawing on our own experiences. Housed in space illi, a former hanok, we will reclaim the domestic space as a powerful conduit for nature connection.
The sessions
In this playful workshop we explore touching the environment on a molecular scale through our sense of taste. Chewing and swallowing are forms of intimate contact with nature where the outside world meets the inside world. We will experiment with image-making, collaging and projection as a method of externalising our microbial internalised worlds together.
In this dynamic workshop we explore drawing as a form of talking to and animating our surroundings… We will experiment with different forms of mark-making using our bodies and materials to document the body of a place. The act of drawing lines becomes a new language between ourselves, each other and the environment. We will then explore different ways of turning our drawings into three-dimensional objects, giving them a ‘body’.
In this noisy workshop we bring the environment alive and make its voices heard! space illi becomes an instrument as we practice listening as a form of coming into contact with and understanding our surroundings. We will elicit the voices of different materials and create a collective sound piece for the exhibition.
Sketching with Scent
In this final relaxing workshop we will explore our sense of smell, scent-making and breathing as a way of shaping worlds… Our breath is a connector between the inside and outside world. We will pay close attention to smelling as an act of survival, dreaming and world-making. We will take part in meditative activities and create collective, smell-poems together using different fragrant materials..
