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.

 

  1. Romily Alice Walden’s work is concerned with physicality and its interplay with other social categorisations and power differentials.
  2. At the core of their practice is an interrogation of embodiment under late stage capitalism.
  3. Walden’s work questions contemporary western society’s relationship with care, tenderness and fragility in relation to our bodies, our communities and our ecosystem.
  4. Romily is interested in the ability (and failure) to navigate physicality, interdependency and vulnerability both communally and individually.
  5. 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?
  6. 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.
  7. 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.