Amelia is an artist based in London working across visual art, dance, dramaturgy, and producing. Phoebe is based in Amsterdam with her studio at Broedplaats, Volkshotel. Her work is performance-based and she facilitates events such as workshops and parties, including Traintracks which you can find in Doka on February 24th.
Phoebe: «We met in 2014 whilst doing an art foundation at Kingston University in London. Then Amelia moved to Scotland for her BA and Phoebe worked in Suffolk, in the south of England and before moving to Amsterdam. Our paths haven’t really crossed over for too long since then but we have maintained a critical dialogue around our practices throughout (as well as a friendship) and this is where our collaborative practice has come from.»
What is your project about?
«Our work explores our relationship to time and how we understand and measure its passing. We are embracing sensory perception rather than capitalist, unit-driven measurement. In doing so, we look to redefine notions of efficiency and productivity. Over the residency, we plan to develop our own ‘tools’ for measuring time and seek to understand what agency we have in it. We want to use the intuition within our bodies as a guide for activity. Whether it’s looking at the speed our body can move at and how it changes with the addition of mechanization, or preserving and slowing decay through a process like pickling.»
Why did you decide to apply for this Artist in Residency?
«We have been discussing these ideas for such a long time now but haven’t ever been able to give them our full attention. This felt like the perfect opportunity to explore the project in person and get deeper into it. The context of Volkshotel also feels like an apt location for the project to grow in as it houses overlapping experiences of time; from the transience of those visiting to the regularity of the workers both in the hotel and in the co-working spaces.»
What do you want to achieve with this project?
«Maybe unsurprisingly, we are hyper-conscious of the time we have available over this month and want to make best use of it whilst simultaneously allowing for freedom to test ideas, and to work with time unconventionally. We have also been wanting to archive and gather everything we have done so far so this will be a good opportunity for that too. Until now, the project has only been living between us, so we look forward to creating a dialogue and finding out how these ideas resonate with others.»
How do you hope to develop yourself?
Amelia: «For me, this is the first time in a long time that I have worked on my practice as I took a considered break and focussed more on supporting other artists with their work. So this feels like a re-emerging for me and such a luxury to spend time working on one thing. I look forward to getting to know the city better particularly by bike as it is a new thing for me.»
Phoebe: «I’ll still have my regular work commitments so I need to be a bit realistic about the time I’ll have, but I’m looking forward to being able to experiment and talk with Amelia about the project over an extended period.»
Keep an eye on our socials to get updates regarding this project.
www.tanamelia.com // www.instagram.com/phoebe.pryor
