Event overview
The Department of Art Public Talks Programme Autumn 2022 welcomes artist India Sky Davis.
Over the past decade, India Sky Davis’ practice has taken on a multiplicity of forms. Guided by an intimate relationship to spirit, afrosurrealism, the erotic as power, and various supernatural, natural and cultural archives, her practice can be described as a series of ambitions and exercises in worldmaking that engage whatever tools are necessary, desired and available to bring that which is invisible, yet palpable to the surface.
She will talk about her work as an acrobatic dancer and choreographer inspired by shapeshifting, embodiment of the otherworldly, and the possibilities of extraordinary feats as portals to new frames of mind. As the Artistic Director of a queer circus production that evolved into a queer BIPOC mythological epic produced in three annual live productions, India will speak on the importance of creating platforms that center queer, femme and BIPOC narratives and imaginations, and the significance of nightlife, subculture and community within this work.
Running parallel to her larger ensemble work, India will touch on her solo practice for the past 10 years, which includes multimedia performance, pole dancing, site specific collaborations with natural and urban landscapes, music, film and installation.
The talk will include a screening of India’s most recent film, ‘The Life Cycle of Rainbows’, which began as her thesis project while completing an MA in Artist Film & Moving Image at Goldsmiths, and was completed as a part of a solo exhibition at EMBASSY gallery in Edinburgh in 2021. Inspired by her research on the BaKongo Cosmogram and it’s influence and permutations within Afro-Diasporic music and dance traditions, particularly underground disco, house and ballroom culture,’The Life Cycle of Rainbows’ shines a polychromatic light on the living connection between the ancestral and physical worlds and the manifold cycles we move through in space and time.
This talk will be followed by a Q&A
Artist Website: http://www.indiaskydavis.squarespace.com/home
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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12 Oct 2022 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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