Subverse/ive bodies: A critical examination of gendered practices and subordination

Subverse/ive bodies is an evolving exhibition combined with a site-specific studio space open to visitors throughout the process.

The project, curated by Dyana Gravina, is co-created with Kadie Salmon and Leni Dothan. The artists’ diverse, yet interconnected, perspectives incorporate religious iconography, gender /queer studies and somatic healing practices in one convoluted conversation around socio-cultural conditioning in gendered practices, attractions and subordination.

Their work is brought together by their inquisitive research and deconstruction of femininit(ies), and a transhistorical creative exploration of experiences of childbirth, sexual disciplining and the medicalisation of ‘subversive’ behaviors.

For a month Hypha Stratford will become the artists’ open studio, and research hub, a durational performative act, and a creative community space. A photographic studio, clay, plaster and wood workshops will be created site-specifically alongside the exhibition space, and it will become a container for individual and collective making. Guest artists Dagmara Bilon, Amy Dignam, Laima Leyton, Khaoula B Karaweigh and Stefania Zocco will be invited as critical friends and collaborators.

The 3 artists’ existing and newly-made works will form a constantly growing exhibition which will be shaped by the conversations between them, the guests artists and the visitor’s. For the entire time the public will be invited to join the process, by witnessing and engaging in artistic making, personal and intellectual exchanges.

Somatic and movement healing practices and creativity will be offered as methods to reach new awareness and self-determination of people’s subjective psychosexual experiences and identities.

Performance days on the last week will create the final gestational stage of the show and a symbolic birthing act of a collective body.