Embodied Change: Desire/Transformation

In contrast to the public modes of exchange that most of the Against Delivery sessions explored, Embodied Change: Desire/Transformation was imagined as a more intimate space for participants to share ideas or objects relating to their research.

Gathered around Nir Segal’s blackboard roundtable with coffees and chalks, each participant was invited to present and respond to the group; making notes and drawing connections on the surface of the table. In this way, short individual presentations were drawn together into a collective conversation around the intersections between these research projects. In response to the theme of the session, participants presented ideas and objects that raised some recurring ideas, including memory, the body (performing, becoming immaterial, ), language, writing, storytelling and re-enactments, imagination and loss.

The closeness of the session seemed to be expressed through the theme of the circle. Formally, we played drums and cymbals, sat at a circular table, and watched a performance of circles being drawn. More than this, we explored circularity as movement, when it became evident that the other side of desire is absence. Absence was expressed as a lack, a death, a loss, and as the non-present. It is always felt and can transform into both generative and destructive forces in a fine art practice.

The circle enlarged as we walked though the space in order to encounter Kay’s work installed in studio 1. The idea of ’embodied change’ was reflected in the way objects were passed between participants at the table, but also in the handling and reading of her text about imagination. We collectively identified with a closeness to our research which so easily spills over into being too close – as Kate Random Love acutely expressed, this danger as she made the decision to remove her emotional attachment from her research.

despite our wide range of topics . queer feminist theory?

to sum  up we had a lot of different subjects but the approaches were those key themes that we mentioned earlier

the circle ‘dissolves? as we end the session?