Warmed Air

Warmed Air was a site-specific performance for the historic lecture theatre and museum of the Anatomy Department at Edinburgh University. The work explored varying levels of perceiving and experiencing the body from the tangible sensations of our own body and the memories that form the stories of our bodies, to the relationships our bodies have with those of others both alive and dead. Choreography and vocal scores were made in response to the site and took inspiration from the history, form and display of the specimens contained in the anatomy museum.

The project was an interdisciplinary collaboration between Steven Anderson, Laura Bradshaw, John Clark, Laura Gonzalez, Paul Michael Henry and Ruth Pollitt in consultation with the Anatomical Museum Curator Malcolm McCallum and Anatomy Professor Tom Gillingwater. The work is a development of a Talbot Rice Gallery commission by Steven Anderson in 2015.

This project extended a working relationship between the artists involved, the anatomy department staff and site into a careful approach to an emotionally and ethically complex environment. For each artist the project was a development from previous working themes around the medicalised body. As a group of artists who have worked together through various configurations in performances, festivals and educational contexts, the themes of this project extended mutual interests into an invested collaborative working process.

The Anatomy Department, Edinburgh, 2018, as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival