Tues 4 — Sun 9 JUN, 12—8PM
APT Gallery
Back room
6 Creekside
London SE8 4SA
This installation will be screened throughout the festival week.
FREE
NO BOOKING REQUIRED
Who Cares is a video installation work created by choreographer Angela Woodhouse and visual artist Caroline Broadhead which reflects on the role of touch as a signifier of care, contamination, intimacy and trust.
Initiated by interviews with intensive care unit (ICU) nursing staff in which individuals reflected on their experiences during and since the pandemic, it was made apparent the need among front line staff for a moment of pause to capture personal thoughts on the notion of one body in relation to another, of how touch, so critical in the care context, has become so guarded, of exhaustion, and of the weight of traumatising events that are still being carried.
These accounts prompted practical explorations in thermal video with dancers. Focus was on the expanded boundary of the self, made visible through thermal representation. Who Cares innovates through the manipulation of thermal imaging combined with movement/dance, registering the consequences of the close contact and merging of bodies. It reveals the potential for painterly abstraction through the video capture of heat trace and with it, the opportunity to explore a poetic interpretation of the tactile.
“[Who Cares] holds timeless relevance as a moving exploration of intimacy and physical touch, and a troubling of the boundaries of the human body”.
Viewers response, Inspace, Edinburgh, Dec 2023
ARTISTS
Caroline Broadhead
Caroline Broadhead’s interdisciplinary practice explores objects that come into contact with and interact with the body. Her work is exhibited internationally and represented in many international collections, including V&A, Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Museum of Art and Design, New York and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Her 2017 retrospective exhibition was shown in the Netherlands and the UK. She is Professor Emerita at Central Saint Martins, London.
Angela Woodhouse
Dance artist Angela Woodhouse’s work is essentially interdisciplinary and collaborative and has been shown widely over the last 30 years, most recently (Un)touched (2016-2020) and (de)figured (2017) in collaboration with artist Nathaniel Rackowe, exhibited in Belgrade, Oslo and Dubai respectively. Their latest work Expanded Landscapes was commissioned as part of Summer Lights Festival, Canary Wharf in 2022. In 2018 Angela was Artist in Residence at Siobhan Davies Studios as part of the MA/ MFA Creative Practice.
Caroline and Angela have collaborated on over 10 works, the first in 1997 (The Waiting Game for Upnor Castle in Kent). Their installation works have been shown nationally and internationally including Sadler’s Wells, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and most recently in Malta.