Structures of Support

2023
wood, cards, textiles, leaning exercises
Huset, group exhibition Nedre Dalgate 2, Stavanger

Leaning is both a question of support and one of trust. Is there really any time we don’t lean? If you stand straight, you still have to trust your body to hold you, yield into the ground. All movement is trust. Will the next movement carry me? When are we not in contact with anything else? I am interested in the boundaries between leaning all weight into something/someone for support, and leaning on your own resources – standing on your own. How and when do I support myself; how/when do I trust “you”? Leaning, or yielding, as Dr. Frank calls it, is about giving and receiving support – orienting through weight. It “serves as the background for all later emerging anti-gravity patterns that move the infant up and away from the earth and through space. Inherent to all yielding are fundamental issues of finding and experiencing support.” (Body of awareness, p.79).The project questions and suggests different structures of support, and through different leaning exercises – people can experience support, give support and find positions of rest.  

Photo: Oddbjørn Erland Aarstad and Eivind Egeland