“drag your body into the sunlight / dig a hole and bury yourself in it”
Delivered via distorted and whispering proxy, Walden sends a biocentric message from the swamp: “take a lower kind of view / spend some time with the bugs in the dirt baths.” The artist’s
instructions show how we might be more queerly in touch with our bodies and environments, opening up new points of connection to the more-than-human world.
“Artists-in-Presidents” is initiated by Constance Hockaday, curated by Christine Shaw, and commissioned by The Blackwood (University of Toronto Mississauga). Podcast production by Vocal Fry.
Transmissions are released every Friday from August 6–December 17, 2021. To view the portrait gallery, access ASL videos and transcripts, and for additional information about the project, visit www.artistsinpresidents.com and www.blackwoodgallery.ca.
Romily Alice Walden is a transdisciplinary artist whose work centres a queer, disabled perspective on the fragility of the body. Their practice questions contemporary Western society's relationship with care, tenderness and vulnerability in relation to our bodies, our communities and our ecosystem. Walden is interested in our ability (and failure) to navigate physicality, interdependency and fallibility both communally and individually. Recent work has shown at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art: Newcastle, Hebel Am Uffer: Berlin, SOHO20: New York, Kunstinstituut Melly: Rotterdam, and Tate Exchange: Tate Modern: London. In 2019 Walden was a Shandaken Storm King resident and will be resident at Wysing Arts Centre and HAU Berlin in 2021. Since 2019, Walden has been a fellow of the Universität der Künste Berlin Graduate School and Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences.
