Touch reveals the boundaries between us but it also connects us, enabling us to transcend our physical limits.
Working with dance and thermal imagery to explore our sense of touch, their moving image work generated from heat data reveals new insights into the expanded body, asking questions about the role of care in society.
Exhibition Supported by the Institute for Design Informatics, Arts Council England and Middlesex University.
Exhibition details
Wednesday, 6th to Tuesday, 19th of Dec 2023
Inspace City Screen Exhibition
Street view from Potterow, Inspace Gallery from 5pm to 2am daily
1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Exhibition Talks and Panel Discussion
Tuesday, 5th Dec 2023
Inspace Gallery
1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
18:00-20:00 (Doors Open 17:30)
Join us in Inspace for Who Cares opening event, exhibition talks and panel discussion. This event features an artist talk given by Angela Woodhouse and Caroline Broadhead with guest talk by Nicole Fernandez who will present her project ‘Images of Care’. This will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Susan Lechelt, who’s research is concerned with understanding and augmenting people’s perceptions and uses of data-driven technologies.
Artist Talk
Artist Caroline Broadhead and Dancemaker Angela Woodhouse will share the creative process in the making of Who Cares, their video installation at Inspace, that explores the aesthetics of thermal imaging within the wider theme of care and contagion. They will discuss the initiation of the project through interviews with ICU nurses at Whittington Hospital, London and how their voices and experiences prompted the development of material in the studio. The artists will share footage and images from the research phase to illustrate themes such as touch, heat trace, intimacy, care, and ethics. The aim of the project is to acknowledge recent events, specifically the difficult and often traumatic experiences for carers, to question how do we care for the carers, and this in the context of the need to make an aesthetic object. The materiality of thermal imaging also draws upon the expanded body as data, drawing attention to readings of the body through biology.
Images of Care
The Images of Care research project is part of the Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC), a multi-disciplinary research programme at the University of Edinburgh. The aim of the Images of Care project is to gain a deeper understanding of care in later life through examining visual representations of care. The research consisted of both a detailed analysis of images of care in the news media during COVID-19 alongside understanding how individuals themselves visually communicate their experiences of care. It is crucial to examine how care in later life is visually represented, as these visual representations shape societal norms and perceptions surrounding aging and care.
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. She is currently senior lecturer in Dance at Middlesex University.
Angela and Caroline have collaborated on many works since 1997. These include site and installation projects that find synergies between materials, space, movement and audience. Venues include Sadler’s Wells, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Lightbox, Woking (in partnership with Tate Artist Rooms) and Royal Opera House. Historic buildings for which site works were commissioned include Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, Witley Court, Worcestershire, and Upnor Castle, Rochester.
Guest Speakers
Dr Nichole Fernández is a visual sociologist specialising in media studies, currently working as a Research Fellow on the Images of Care project at the Advanced Care Research Centre (University of Edinburgh). Within the ACRC, Nichole is exploring the how care later in life is visually represented and constructed. With a background in creative and visual methodologies, her expertise extends across diverse subjects, including digital sociology, mental health, migration, geography, nationalism, and environment. Before joining the ACRC, Nichole held positions as a Lecturer in Sociology at UCSD and an assistant professor at Hiram. Her PhD was conducted at the University of Edinburgh in sociology researching representations of nation and place.
Dr Susan Lechelt is a lecturer in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, working across interaction design and human-computer interaction. One key focus of her research is exploring emerging links between creative practice and contemporary technologies. As part of the Creative Informatics programme, she worked with a range of creative practitioners (e.g., visual and performing artists) to support them in considering how to use technologies ranging from Internet of Things to Artificial Intelligence in their work and practice. Her research also navigates questions of care, primarily in the context of using care as a lens to support more sustainable relationships between people and the technologies we own.
Exhibition Credits
Who Cares by Angela Woodhouse and Caroline Broadhead
Dancers Martina Conti and Alice Labant
Producer Alexa Seligman
Editor Dominique Rivoa
With thanks to ICU nurses of Whittington Hospital, London and to Mikkel Svak for technical assistance.
Supported by the Institute for Design Informatics, Arts Council England and Middlesex University.