EMBODIED ENCOUNTERS WORKSHOP

I loved this workshop! this was a totally new experience for me I have never worked in this way considering an all round feeling or experienced for the viewer. Expressing ideas, qualities and feelings. we discussed as a group the key interests to evoke during this exercise, what we are interested in showing and what our favourite firms from the  workshops were.

(I have no photo evidence from the plaster workshop using the fabric moulds as it was very messy and I was too emerged in the workshop to remember to take pictures of my foot and hand. we first made fabric moulds by drawing, then using the sewing machine to sew around the shapes to create a ‘pocket’ for the plaster to sit in. These images were taken the morning of this workshop once the forms had set and solidified into held positions, I curled my fingers of the hand to create a more interesting composition.)

we started my manipulating and ripping the fabric from our plaster forms this became an interesting discussion of making an ephemeral nature of skin was resembled within the fabric, so we wanted to give the form permanence by stiffening the fabric using wax.

I  bound my plaster hand within a pair of tights and use mixed mediums to submerge peel and rip the form to create connotations of damaged skin and revealing layers of the body, bandaging and repairing broken skin. I have had operations where I have felt like I’ve been torn apart and sewn and pulled back together.

we wanted to bring the forms together so we experimented by dipping the resources given to us (wool fabric, lace fabric and knit) to create these “tripe” like forms that when these fabrics were dipped in wax then submerged in slip repelled each other forming this spinal tripe skin like quality. these we hung to intertwine with the placed hands.

This was an interesting exercise to undertake after having claire’s lecture where she spoke about the unconscious mind as we felt as a group we were making things to play and explore not necessarily knowing the final outcome by pulling similarities and ideas around as we were working.