Talk Body as a Testimony Dharma Taylor and Henrique J. Paris

“…The whole apparatus of a history, key figures, and works, tendencies, shifts, breaks, ruptures, slips into place silently.” – Stuart Hall (2001), Constituting an Archive

Join us for an in-conversation between Dharma Taylor and Henrique J. Paris as we reflect on their shared research corresponding to Stuart Hall’s ideas about testifying history and reaffirming existence.

Looking through a paradigm that considers the body as a living archive in itself — they are questioning strategies and definitions in their artistic and design practices seeking new ways of approaching the ‘body’, bridging both of their knowledge from the different experiences working with imagery, furniture-making, tailoring, choreographing body movement, etc.

Thinking relationships between objects, movement, social processes and cultural memories through open lenses that attend plural histories and possibilities.

This talk is part of iniva’s Research Network programme Contested Sites. It is supported by funding from Freelands Foundation. 

Accessibility

If you have any access requirements, please email us in advance at info@iniva.org and we will do our best to accommodate.

Biography

Dharma Taylor is a multidisciplinary designer and maker with a background specialising in menswear and textiles. She graduated from Rochester University for the creative arts with a BA in Fashion Design and the London College of Fashion with an MA in Menswear. She has developed her practice and explored working with new material, Dharma’s way of combining textiles with woodwork produces works of great beauty and deceptive simplicity. Over the past few years through research-based projects, she has sought to observe aspects of the society and systems in which we exist. Inspired by diverse sources, from technology and poetry to ancient civilisations and cultural plurality.

Henrique J. Paris is an Angolan transdisciplinary artist, graduated in Philosophy with film at the University of Hertfordshire. His works cross examine ideas between spatial performativity and the bodily memory; posing questions concerned with visual culture, philosophy, and architecture. Henrique’s ongoing research gathers counter-colonial epistemologies to investigate prospects in world building, image making & knowledge production as disciplines — often using mediums across design, multimedia installations, and moving-still-images.

Past projects include LUSO|PHONIC HAPTICITIES at The Africa Centre, Tactility: Ethics of Cultural Heritage and Land at the V&A Museum in London, Registos Bantu w/ Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, My Ontological Corporeality at Hangar in Lisbon and more.

Image credit: Photographed by Erika Neves.