ROOM 2021 is now closed. It was Flora Fauna Project's third dance platform. Here we brought you close to some extraordinary artists and community exchanges from all over the world.
Together with Canadian museum practitioner, multi disciplinary researcher and dance writer Jo Minhinnett, we selected and reached out to seven artists in total, whose collaborations include people incarcerated in solitary confinement, people living with Parkinson’s disease, theatre, surfing, education, hospital groups, scientists, youth and elderly groups. We spoke with the artists informally and these conversations are still available for you to read. For a limited time ach artist also gave us material from their own work, life and process. This part of the exhibition is now closed.
Our bodies are wired with a natural intelligence that can be accessed and harnessed to retrieve our most authentic selves. The intelligence that dance and movement based practices have to offer can move us out of the holes we have buried ourselves in. Community, self care and non-judgement can break cycles of fear and violence so that together we can begin to heal, transform and work peacefully towards a better world. This always begins locally, and we dare to suggest as locally as the individual body.
ROOM was, and is, about people coming together. It's about giving the artists and their community-focused work ROOM in a crowded online space.
During this heightened period of separation we got as close to the artists as we could, curious to know what they have learned, what motivates them and what brought them to this place of leadership and collaboration.
Solidarity, Natural Intelligence, Healing, Community, Empathy, Equality and Permission to Feel are some of the themes that came up again and again in our conversations with the artists while creating and giving ROOM. We offer an opportunity for us all to direct our attention towards these values. We hope that you will find inspiration while reflecting on what’s possible when we move together.
Maria Nilsson Waller + Stace Gill
// FLORA FAUNA PROJECT
ROOM was made possible through the support of The Irish Arts Council, Dance Ireland, Project Arts Centre and D-Light Studios.