DANCING WITH THE DEAD
20 JUNE – 9 AUGUST
The Lock-Up will reopen to limited numbers of visitors from 20th June, using a free one hour timed-entry ticket system. At this time The Lock Up’s opening hours will be changing to Thursday – Sunday 11am – 3pm with four, one hour sessions each day. Book your free ticket to DANCING WITH DEAD via eventbrite.
Named after the infamous Madagascan dancing with the dead ritual of Famadihana, DANCING WITH THE DEAD is a group exhibition that aims to illuminate the convergence of memory and corporeality within a larger context of ‘deaths’ and the multiplicity of experiences that fall within it; whether that be physical death, spiritual death or cultural death.
Much like the traditional Madagascan process (which sees families and loved ones exhuming bodies from tombs, carefully re-wrapping, then lovingly dancing with their corpses), this exhibition aims to explore the concept of death as permeable and to present questions like: What is our relationship to the nature of death and darkness? What can our experience of loss look and feel like when re-interpreted, re-performed and re-presented in a gallery setting? Through adopting the imagery of dancing with and subsequently embracing ‘darkness’ – in the forms of universal experiences such as loss, religiosity and ritual; DANCING WITH THE DEAD hopes that all who attend and interact with the works will be able to share in a communal and cathartic activity that shines light on the paradoxically unique and universal experiences of death and endings.