Reading Rhythmns

About

When we speak or write about our spaces we find new ways to understand them, question them, share them with others, observe them, create them. Relationships between our spaces and our words are blurred, complex and woven. Words have inner dynamic rhythms within them. They contain their own movements, patterns, scales and emotions. The words we use - and their organisation into sentences, phrases, structures - shape how we understand, describe and construct the spaces around us. 

Our bodies are intrinsically both spatial and linguistic. Our bodies are spatial: our rhythms create patterns that shape and transform our streets, offices, studios, kitchens, train stations and hallways. Our bodies are also linguistic: we use particular breathing patterns and vibrations within our bodies to create the sounds, rhythms, speeds and tempos of our speech. 

Being between our spaces and our words, we will use our bodies as artistic research tools to understand and question the relationships and connections between them. We will use our bodies as a method through performance to analyse, dissect, observe, question, embody and understand our spoken words and our spaces. 

Within this workshop we will be experimenting with movement practice to research the spaces that are around us - our bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and screens, our gardens.

How can our language and spoken words describe, understand and construct our spaces? 

How can movement offer a different perspective to understand and read spaces?

How can our bodies become bridges to navigate between our language and our spaces?

Moving between individual and group formats, we will create a collective piece of writing and performance of our shared spaces. As we understand a space not through lines and measurements - but through movements, rhythms, words, breaths, language - we will move towards an embodied and intimate exploration of place.

If you are interested to join us please email us at shivanishah9999@gmail.com so that we can send you the specific details for the workshop location and any other instructions closer to the date! Thank you and hope to see you ! :)

About the Artists:

Shivani Shah:

Shivani is an architect and artist, based in Mumbai,  and situates her practice at the intersection of art,  architecture, performance and urbanism. Moving  across territories of capitalism, algorithms and  human body movement, her practice centres  around collaboration with different creative  practices questioning and creating a nuanced and  sensitive edge to the field of architecture. Shivani has shared her work through performances and workshops at the Royal Academy, London and Studio Wayne McGregor, London. Graduating with an MA  in Situated Practice from the Bartlett School of  Architecture, UCL, she has also worked at Junya Ishigami and  Associates in Tokyo, and at RMA Architects in  Mumbai.

Eloise Maltby Maland:

Eloise is a transdisciplinary artist with a research-based and socially engaged practice. Eloise graduated from her Masters in Situated Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, in London in 2019 where she also previously studied her undergraduate in Architecture and Interdisciplinary Studies. Her practice engages with language, movement and storytelling, with a critical approach to understanding the spaces around us and our relationships within them. Eloise has shared her work through performances and workshops at the Royal Academy, London; the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill On Sea; and the Chilean Conexion Festival, Berlin.