Laura Fisher - FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace)

Part of Take Me Somewhere Festival 

INSTALLATION - gallery opening hours
From Sunday 22 October to Sunday 29 October

PERFORMANCE
Saturday 21 October 2 to 6pm
Free unticketed durational performance, visit between opening times

~ let me take your weight ~ can I lean on you today? ~ is that okay? 

A durational performance installation, and a temporary site for collective rest, which holds the live archive of an ongoing choreographic collaboration between artist Laura Fisher and seven sheets of copper metal. 

Drawing parallels between the material properties of the sheet metal and the artist’s body which experiences chronic pain, the collaboration utilises body heat to create an intimate relationship of interdependency. Through cycles of moving and resting together, body and metal shift in supportive relation to one another from which sculptural forms gradually emerge and change. The search for a shared movement language between material and human is echoed in the integration of live audio description by guest artists - whose words, observations and narration become a third dancer in the performance. 

Close your eyes ~ rest your head ~ lay your tired body down. Within a soft sculptural environment designed by Zephyr Liddell, audiences are given permission to rest and drift between the senses. Disrupting sight as the dominant sensory engagement within gallery spaces, FORGED invites tactile interactions between material and bodies to consider the complicated relationship around care, power, illness and intimacy that often exists for disabled people. 

AUDIENCE NOTE
The work quietly alludes to themes of illness, disability and intimacy, however, there is nothing explicit or directly referenced. There is a gentle invitation to audiences to interact with the soft sculptures and seating by resting in the installation during performance of installation. There are heat reactive textiles incorporated into the design, which will react to audience touch and body heat.

Sculptures may have sharp edges that could be a danger to young children playing in the space. Children should be closely supervised.
Recommended for ages 8+

CREDITS
Performers - Laura Fisher and Guest Audio Description from TBA & TBA

Photo - Emily Nicholl