Ruth Waters: All of a Sudden I Began to Melt

About

All of a Sudden I Began to Melt is a moving image installation that reflects on contemporary wellness and the space it occupies in our culture and psyche. The work is set in a serene spa treatment room, a sterile atmosphere of generic ambient music, white towels and positive affirmations. It surreally explores worker-client relationships, as the power dynamics of luxury service are flipped on their head when a massage client notices an empty packet of Wotsits on a sideboard. Addressing the strange fantasy of the luxury wellness space, the film plays with the anxiety caused by the desire to have complete control over our mental and physical environment.

The work was created in collaboration with Luke Kulukundis & Mateo Villanueva Brandt of Foreign Body Productions and set designer Matty Mancey-Jones.

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Ruth Waters (b. Kendal, 1986) was one of Kingsgate Workshops' 2020 artists-in-residence. She is a visual artist working in moving image installation. Her practice explores how our late-capitalist society impacts our levels of anxiety and ability to imagine an alternative. In 2016 she was awarded the Goldsmiths Prize, including a year-long residency at ACME Studios in London. Since then her video installations have been exhibited worldwide, including at The Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Taipei (2020), The 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow (2018), White Shadows, Wumin Art Center, Cheongju (2018), Seep, Peer Gallery, London (2017) and Cacotopia, Annka Kultys Gallery, London (2017). She was artist-in-residence at ARCUS Projects (2019) where she interviewed Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki for her moving image work, Swallow Up which was later exhibited at her solo show of the same name at 1646, The Netherlands (2021).