Reflection on Process and Practice and Building
Ria Hartley
The Body As Art
Take a little journey inside of yourself; be an explorer of your own body. Dive into your veins and swim amongst your blood, sit inside the bronchioles of your lung, go to the deepest darkest corner of your stomach, then take the long road through your intestine. Stretch over your muscle, push from under your skins surface, break free, shed, step outside of you, and re-enter through your mouth, down your oesophagus, hold your breath, die a little, watch the skin cells fall willingly from your body, swallow, breath in, then live.
I am a practicing artist, researcher and educator. My research is transdisciplinary, as is my practice, and I consider my working methods to be hybrid, as am I. Working across disciplines, I use my body as a site of origin. My work is processed based, experimental, fluid and spans a variety of mediums including performance, digital art, live art, video, photography, and installation practices.
I have focussed on autobiographical material in much of my work; using memory and my body as a site to construct temporal, spatial and material encounters with a public. I have a desire to develop close interactions with my audiences, building relationships through exchange. I invite audiences to experience my body in close proximity, sometimes using the screen and mediating the body to inspect the subject through a lens.
I came to the Body as Art surgery with the question:
How can I ensure I am working within the parameters of a safe practice whilst experimenting and making work with my body in a home studio?
After experimenting with my body over a period of a year in the comfort of my own home, behind closed doors, I considered the implications of my physical boundaries and chose not to push myself further without clear knowledge and practical understanding of my own body and its limitations to prevent risk of harm or damage to my body.
The Body as Art surgery offered a space to consider my ideas, answer practical questions concerning the body, work within safe practice, create and platform work within Art, collaborate with female artists working with the body, create a new network, gain new knowledge’s about my body through a medical examination and developing new skills such as how to access my blood.
Hosted by Michael and Tuheen, two established professionals with exceptional experience and knowledge, from the fields of art and medicine, the surgery cultivated the questions and experiences of five female artists. Together we explored our material fabric, the external, internal, skeletal and biological, discussing in detail aspects of our existing knowledge’s and constantly gaining new insights both in medical and artistic terms.
The week long process was a shared experience based on trust between the participants and hosts. Loosely structured, the week unfolded organically, developing its own rhythm responding to the tone of those whom were creating the working environment together within art.
During the week there was a focus on practical medical training and questions surrounding safe practice, care, and aftercare.
We all had the opportunity to experience a very rare and unique training into the medical field using a range of apparatus and extracting blood from the body.
The surgery was both an individual and collective experience. Working solely with women artists, connecting immediately with their inner beauty, strength, creativity and integrity, I brought with me my body, my psyche, my experience, my honesty, my questions and an open mind, and I found my humanity.
Tension/Release/Transformation
Within the context of art, Michael Mayhew’s workspace/studio/gallery/performance/exhibition/residency space/archive, I presented a ritual based performance act in response to my experience of my cultural, spiritual, habitual, gendered, existential, phenomenological, abject and critical self processes during the week.
The work resulted in a transformation.
Using my blood and hair to create a tension and exchange system between internal and external materials, I shared myself and offered the ritual to those whom were present, releasing me from my constraints and sharing in this experience.
The Body As Art
Take a little journey inside of yourself; be an explorer of your own body. Dive into your veins and swim amongst your blood, sit inside the bronchioles of your lung, go to the deepest darkest corner of your stomach, then take the long road through your intestine. Stretch over your muscle, push from under your skins surface, break free, shed, step outside of you, and re-enter through your mouth, down your oesophagus, hold your breath, die a little, watch the skin cells fall willingly from your body, swallow, breath in, then live.
I am a practicing artist, researcher and educator. My research is transdisciplinary, as is my practice, and I consider my working methods to be hybrid, as am I. Working across disciplines, I use my body as a site of origin. My work is processed based, experimental, fluid and spans a variety of mediums including performance, digital art, live art, video, photography, and installation practices.
I have focussed on autobiographical material in much of my work; using memory and my body as a site to construct temporal, spatial and material encounters with a public. I have a desire to develop close interactions with my audiences, building relationships through exchange. I invite audiences to experience my body in close proximity, sometimes using the screen and mediating the body to inspect the subject through a lens.
I came to the Body as Art surgery with the question:
How can I ensure I am working within the parameters of a safe practice whilst experimenting and making work with my body in a home studio?
After experimenting with my body over a period of a year in the comfort of my own home, behind closed doors, I considered the implications of my physical boundaries and chose not to push myself further without clear knowledge and practical understanding of my own body and its limitations to prevent risk of harm or damage to my body.
The Body as Art surgery offered a space to consider my ideas, answer practical questions concerning the body, work within safe practice, create and platform work within Art, collaborate with female artists working with the body, create a new network, gain new knowledge’s about my body through a medical examination and developing new skills such as how to access my blood.
Hosted by Michael and Tuheen, two established professionals with exceptional experience and knowledge, from the fields of art and medicine, the surgery cultivated the questions and experiences of five female artists. Together we explored our material fabric, the external, internal, skeletal and biological, discussing in detail aspects of our existing knowledge’s and constantly gaining new insights both in medical and artistic terms.
The week long process was a shared experience based on trust between the participants and hosts. Loosely structured, the week unfolded organically, developing its own rhythm responding to the tone of those whom were creating the working environment together within art.
During the week there was a focus on practical medical training and questions surrounding safe practice, care, and aftercare.
We all had the opportunity to experience a very rare and unique training into the medical field using a range of apparatus and extracting blood from the body.
The surgery was both an individual and collective experience. Working solely with women artists, connecting immediately with their inner beauty, strength, creativity and integrity, I brought with me my body, my psyche, my experience, my honesty, my questions and an open mind, and I found my humanity.
Tension/Release/Transformation
Within the context of art, Michael Mayhew’s workspace/studio/gallery/performance/exhibition/residency space/archive, I presented a ritual based performance act in response to my experience of my cultural, spiritual, habitual, gendered, existential, phenomenological, abject and critical self processes during the week.
The work resulted in a transformation.
Using my blood and hair to create a tension and exchange system between internal and external materials, I shared myself and offered the ritual to those whom were present, releasing me from my constraints and sharing in this experience.