All in: bodied – a love letter to the female-identifying body – opens tomorrow

All in: bodied is a love letter to the way the female-identifying body occupies space, the infinite variation of forms she takes and the way she moves through the world. A collaboration between artist Zoe Marden, designer Sinaed O’Dwyer, choreographer Grace Nicol, dance artist Becky Namguads and curator Bryony Stone, the exhibition and performative work at Galeria Melissa will fuse these artists’ different practices to explore the female-identifying body in motion.

RCA MA fashion grad Sinead O’Dwyer will display her industrial practice of using fibreglass moulds as a means of construction with two custom-designed garments to be worn for live performances by solo artist Zoe Marden and choreographer Grace Nicol, performed by dance artist Becky Namgauds, on the opening night of all in: bodied. After the performance, these garments will be repurposed as sculptural reminders of the female body in motion.

For all in: bodied, Grace’s live work, Slip Mould Slippery, will respond to Sinead’s garments, exploring the violence of troubling the object vs. body distinction. The work will consider how the specificity of Becky’s female body, layered with the lifecast shape of Jade Bruce-Linton’s body can stand in for all female bodies and find power within the collective notion of self, body, object and experience.

Zoe Marden’s video work, entitled teras the Greek word for monster, is a dedication to the Mermaid and how it blurs the boundary between “women and fish, femininity and ferocity, land and sea, human and other,” with these mythological creatures challenging the very notion of what it means to be feminine.

All in: bodied is open from 18th – 21st October at Galeria Melissa.