Academics, artists, dancers, choreographers, wrestlers and community organisations came together for Bodies of Knowledge, with six interdisciplinary workshops held earlier this year for the first stage of the project.
Raju Rage, with support from Notts Trans Hub, ran a collaborative workshop exploring photography and sound recording as methodologies for exploring embodiment and self-representation.
Senior Lecturer in English and Drama Dr Claire Warden worked alongside professional wrestler Cara Noir and dancer and choreographer Joe Moran to explore tensions between the real and the performed in contemporary dance and wrestling through two workshops for performing art students and trainee wrestlers. The workshops and a related round table session resulted in the production of a film by the artist and filmmaker Sam Williams.
Researchers from Loughborough University’s Migrant Memory and Postcolonial Imagination project alongside Kathak dancer Kesha Raithatha and artist Tara Fetehi Irani focused on how memories, places and gestures are connected to each other and to bodies, and how Kathak dancing can be used to experiment with ways of remembering these stories through movement.
Each set of workshops involved the production of new images, and a selection of these - some reworked into completed artworks and others in their original state - will be exhibited at Attenborough Arts Centre from Friday 25 October – Sunday 3 November.
Image credit: Sam Williams
Raju will be holding a second workshop for transgender people during the residency at the Centre, which will close the developmental phase of the Bodies of Knowledge project.
A presentation of the final and full artworks made as part of the project is also planned to be exhibited at a future date.
Laura Purseglove, Producer of Radar said: “We are very pleased to be able to present artwork produced as part of the Bodies of Knowledge project alongside work in progress and documentary material.
“This residency offers us the opportunity to host the final workshop and share the diverse body of work produced so far with visitors to Attenborough Art Centre. We hope that audiences will contribute to the development of the project by offering their thoughts and ideas.”
A preview event of the exhibition will take place this Thursday (24 October) at the Attenborough Arts Centre. It takes place from 6.30pm-9pm and is free to attend. Those who are interested in attending can register their place online here.
Radar is LU Arts’ commissioning and research programme, which invites artists to produce new work in response to and as part of research undertaken across the University’s two campuses, bringing artistic and academic work together.
For more information, please contact LU Arts by emailing LUArts@lboro.ac.uk or calling 01509 222948.