(Un)touched

(Un)touched is a performance installation of two structures, a glass corridor and a glass floor. The corridor work premiered at 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London as part of ‘Sculpture at Work’, February 2016. The full double installation premiered at Fold Gallery, London in June 2017. The floor piece was performed at the National Museum of Belgrade, July 2018, and CODA International Dance Festival, Oslo in October 2019. It was also to be performed at University of Malta as part of ‘Performance Knowledges: Transmission, Composition, Praxis’ conference March 2020 (cancelled due to lockdown in Malta).

Research began in 2014 to investigate an experience of intimacy within a construction that simultaneously divides those within it. As collaborators (Nathaniel and I) our interest was to probe, through movement enactments, relationships of meeting and separation. The research focused on the behaviour of materials, such as testing load-bearing strengths, using reflective glass to extend space, exploring the behaviour of light in hiding as well as revealing the body. Our aim was to discern the extent to which modulation in movement over time creates a desire in the viewer to touch the surface in differing ways. Here we discovered the multiplicity of physical responses that formed the work for all present. The viewers were driving both the aesthetic and psychological value of the work.

The research focused on the sanctioned actions or otherwise of the viewer, a facet under-explored in a dance context. South Korean artist Do Ho Suh resonated, specifically his sculpture Floor (1997), which draws upon the tension between individual power and that of human collective action. We re-imagined this tension in a live event.

Collaborators:
Sculptor Nathaniel Rackowe
Dancers: Alice Labant and Martina Conti

Preliminary events:

(Un)touched preliminary trial
Location: Lakeside Gallery, Nottingham,
Dates: 26-30 Jul 2014

(Un) touched research phase 1,
Location: Inside Out Festival, Cecil Sharpe House, London,
Dates: 23-24 Oct 2014

(Un) touched...research phase 2,
Location: Inside Out Festival, G11, Oxo Tower Wharf, South Bank, London,
Dates: 20-21 Oct 2015