Walden, Romily Alice
Romily Alice Walden is a transdisciplinary artist whose work centres a queer, disabled perspective on the fragility of the body. Their practice spans sculpture, installation, video, curation and printed matter, all of which is undertaken with a socially engaged and research-led working methodology. Recent work has shown at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art: Newcastle, Hebbel Am Ufer: Berlin, SOHO20: New York and Tate Exchange: Tate Modern: London. In 2019 Walden was a Shandaken Storm King resident, and will be resident at Wysing Arts Centre in 2020. They work both individually and collectively as a member of Sickness Affinity Group; a group of sick, disabled and care-giving art workers and activists who work on the topic of sickness/disability, care and labour conditions. Since 2019, Walden has been a fellow of the UdK Graduate School and Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Art and Science.
- Romily Alice Walden’s work is concerned with physicality and its interplay with other social categorisations and power differentials.
- At the core of their practice is an interrogation of embodiment under late stage capitalism.
- Walden’s work questions contemporary western society’s relationship with care, tenderness and fragility in relation to our bodies, our communities and our ecosystem.
- Romily is interested in the ability (and failure) to navigate physicality, interdependency and vulnerability both communally and individually.
- How can access remain generative? What are the limits of translation? What can we find in the edges and boundary layers of ability and somatic experience?
- The vulnerability of the body has served as a focus for Walden’s practice since 2017; recent work seeks to disturb overly simplistic understandings of the disabled body, looking to bring an ethic of care, a connection between the land and the body, and a cripped concept of performance into conversation with their work.
- Their practice spans installation, printed matter, performance, video and coded arduino control systems, all of which is undertaken with a socially-engaged and research-led working methodology.
