FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace)
Commissioned Unlimited Commissions: Emerging Artist Award with support from Creative Scotland and the inaugural Dave Toole OBE Bursary Award
Image: FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) by Laura Fisher. Design by Zephyr Liddell. Photograph by Emily Nicholl
FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace)
let me take your weight ~ can I lean on you today? ~ is that okay?
FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) is a durational performance installation for gallery spaces and a temporary site for collective rest which holds the live archive of an ongoing choreographic collaboration between artist Laura Fisher and seven sheets of copper metal.
Drawing parallels between the material properties of the sheet metal and the artist’s body which experiences chronic pain, the collaboration utilises body heat to create an intimate relationship of interdependency. Through cycles of moving and resting together, body and metal shift in supportive relation to one another from which sculptural forms gradually emerge and change.
The search for a shared movement language between material and human is echoed in the integration of live audio description by guest artists – whose words, observations and narration become a third dancer in the performance.
An evolving archive, FORGED responds to each new site it is presented within, working with local guest artist to create a new interpretation of the Audio Description each time, adding to the archive of voices, bodies and perspectives that make up the work.
Image by Emily Nicholl
close your eyes ~ rest your head ~ lay your tired body down
Within a soft sculptural environment designed by Zephyr Liddell, audiences are given permission to rest and drift between the senses. Disrupting sight as the dominant sensory engagement within gallery spaces, FORGED invites tactile interactions between material and bodies to consider the complicated relationship around care, power, illness and intimacy that often exists for disabled people
FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) is an Unlimited commission, supporting the work of disabled artists with funding from Creative Scotland and the Dave Toole OBE Bursary fund.
Supported by Creative Scotland, Dance Base, Outerspaces, Present Futures, Studio Somewhere, and The Work Room’s residency programme.
Lead artist: Laura Fisher
Guest Audio Describers (live) TMS: Ellen Renton & Simone Seales
Guest Audio Describers (live) Rise Festival: Lynsey Gilmour & Ruby Worth
Audio Describers (performance): Raquel Meseguer Zafe & Romany Dear
Audio Describer (installation): Romany Dear
Costume, Textiles & Installation Design: Zephyr Liddell
Dramaturg: Thulani Rachia
Choreographic Mentor: Farah Saleh
Audio Description Consultation: Quiplash
Co-producers: Siân Baxter & Laura Fisher
Production Manager: Siân Baxter
Choreographic Assistants: Aniela Piasecka, Anne Kjær, Sky Su, Hannah Draper
Project Support Worker: Hannah Draper
Audio Description (R&D): Sky Su & Emma Jane McHenry
Movement Research Collaborators (R&D): Penny Chivas & Sarah Hopfinger
Project Coaching: Kim Simpson
World Premiere - Take Me Somewhere, Tramway
Performance Saturday 21 October 2023 with Guest Audio Description by Ellen Renton & Simone Seales
Installation | Sunday 22 October - Sunday 29 October 2023 | Tramway, Upper Gallery
Rise festival, Dance North Scotland. Moray Art Centre
Performance Saturday 25 May 2024 with Guest Audio Description by Lynsey Gilmour & Ruby Worth
Installation | Monday 27 May - Sunday 09 June 2024 | Moray Art Centre, Main Gallery
watch teaser trailer
For bookings and enquiries: please contact: laurafisher_performance@outlook.com
Images: FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) by Laura Fisher. Design by Zephyr Liddell. Photographs by Emily Nicholl
The copper used in FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) is responsibly sourced European copper, re-purposed from industrial waste and manufacturing by-product. The artist is sensitive to the historic and present environmental and colonial impacts of copper mining and commits to working sustainably and respectfully with materials in their practice.
