Original article published in Spanish in The Corporeal Turn on July 31st, 2020 : CLICK HERE.
In 2011, the designer and sculptor Eve Bailey (Ève Laroche-Joubert, Nancy -France-, 1975) created a fantastic bench called Shoulder Path. A unique piece, specifically designed from the exploration of the body in motion. Such object should definitely be everywhere: in offices, in schools, on the streets, or in my living room. Its form is organic and attractive, and, most importantly, it invites us to rethink our attitude about the idea of “sitting”, precisely because it raises all kinds of possibilities of postures, and rejects the idea of a single “correct” posture.
I got to know Bailey’s work a few years ago, when I began to research ergonomic supports, while desperately looking for someone else who would think about them from another perspective: furniture and elements that directly take into account the body as a structure in constant movement, elements thought to stretch, play, roll … Did you ever dream of inventing them? Bailey already had. She uses the body to elaborate elements and landscapes that are, in themselves, extensions of it, explore the footprint, the contour, the volume and the structure in curves that, as in the bodies, blend with each other.
I know I am not the only one: I love to sit in strange ways in chairs, use any object to support me in positions, let’s say, unconventional. We all do it to a greater or lesser extent: we use whatever support we can: a handrail, a sidewalk or a planter. As I look at Bailey’s work, I can’t stop thinking about how we grow away from these kinds of explorations: how the adult world in our society restricts research. Exploring objects beyond their initial idea or outside of their conventional use … play, discover unexpected possibilities … or create them … That impulse of curiosity so present in childhood – and in carefree and creative moments – discovers fertile grounds in which to create new designs, new supports, new forms. Play and art offer us new possibilities and, in doing so, free us from prejudice.
I love the perspective of this artist. Her kinetic devices and her sculptures are an organic reflection of the body, they invite the touch, express elegance, balance and sensitivity. Her creations elude a specific category: a sculptural and architectural look for the body and for dance, an investigation of how we build our environment, a search for human potential through movement. That is why her creations are so beautiful and interesting.
The possibilities of these elements can be appreciated in the Entasis Dance videos. If you see them, you can enjoy some sculptures that make sense by dancing on them (quite a declaration of intention about the use of art!), by leaning, floating, stretching, investigating and enjoying. You can look at other works in the same vein on the artist’s page, and see the possibilities they offer in her precious videos.
By Montse Morilla, dancer.
