skin experiments - ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIMENTS - BALLET EXPERIMENTS
for holly durant’s dermal dimensions (2019)
SKIN EXPERIMENTS - photography © Michael Pham
In September 2018 I was invited to collaborate with performance artist and choreographer Holly Durant on her 2019/ 2020 Research Project & new work development WORLD WORKS FOR ALTERED GAZES - re visioning the social and gendered body in performance art and dance, Durant’s aim being “to disrupt stubborn structures of the dominant gaze through using her loud, moving, self-authoring, disobedient body in performance to contribute to an altered gaze.”
My role role in the project being to, through the creation of inhabitable sculptures, objects, installation and environmental enhancements, contribute to the “crafting of saturated viewing worlds that investigate and challenge enduring and reductive stereotypes of the body and to the creating of spaces where transgressive transformation can play out.”
A series of developmental experiments (WORLD FRAGMENTS) were undertaken throughout 2019, culminating in the creation of SKIN EXPERIMENTS - including the multi-functional MEAT LOCKER inhabitable sculptures and objects, ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIMENTS - including SUSPENSION/ TETHER installation works, and BALLET EXPERIMENTS, a sculptural re-interpretation of the archetypal pointe shoe and tutu.
Holly Durant’s 80hr long durational performance work DERMAL DIMENSIONS, was exhibited at RMIT in December 2019.
THE DRESSING RITUAL (EXCERPT) - Cinematography, Direction and Editing - Lucy Pijnenburg: Sound - Roland Kershaw
BALLET EXPERIMENTS I BALLET SHOES - besser blocks, cotton rope
SKIN EXPERIMENTS I MEAT LOCKER WORKS
TUTU - tulle, leather, cotton thread
photography © Damian Stephens
- leather, bonded thread, brass, thonging, net, cotton thread
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIMENTS I SUSPENSION/ TETHER - river rocks, leather, bonded thread, pantyhose
photography © Prue Stent
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIMENTS I SKIN HAMMOCKS - power net I SKIN FALL - latex, river rocks I TERRATOMA - river rock, pig skin, bonded thread, latex, meat hooks
