DUNDEE.- Dundee Contemporary Arts is now presenting a new body of work by Dundee-based artist Saoirse Amira Anis, her first major exhibition in a UK institution. The installation of new film, sculpture, and costume work, builds upon Anis’s ongoing research delving into the parallels that can be drawn between Scottish and Moroccan folklore and rituals, particularly looking at how these are rooted in each country's deep connection to water.

Anis’s practice prioritises radical care, informality, and empathy. Her work is informed by Black queer literature, her personal ancestry, and her own body as it moves through the world. She incorporates bodily knowledge and care into each facet of her work, considering the ways in which the body holds ancestral and lived memories – particularly in relation to feelings of guilt, shame and inadequacy.

symphony for a fraying body is inspired by mythologies, nature, cultural bricolage and the rebellion and rage of those overlooked by dominant society and assigned as “other”- their collective agitation by turns quiet, insidious, and powerful. Tentacles, receptacles, sand rope pervade the work, suggesting ebbing and flowing, gripping and drowning, gathering and unravelling. Anis weaves this meandering story together with what feminist scholar and writer Donna Haraway calls “Tentacular thinking.” This way of interpreting the world comes from a place outside human-based knowledge, to touch, feel and inhabit ideas the way nonhumans might.

Crafting an inviting space in DCA’s gallery 1, the exhibition premieres a newly commissioned film displayed within a sculptural frame, alongside what the artist refers to as “detritus”- the by-products from the films’ creation - allowing the work to creep out into the gallery, blurring the lines between screen, materials, and surroundings.

The film features a dancer wearing a costume made of rope dyed red with madder root, as they meander through rockpools, waterfalls and seafronts, crossing land and water. Footage of the process of dyeing and rope-making sits alongside shots of the dye seeping into the water, as the tendrils of the dress trail along the ground and swing while the dancer moves their arms and legs. The colours and the textures of the work draw on sea creatures, earthy materials and Moroccan and Scottish culture, echoing Anis’s own heritage.

A percussive soundtrack created specifically for the exhibition will overlay the film in Gallery 1, crafting a journey between swelling melody and repetitive rhythms, taking influence from music that can be found across Morocco and Scotland – particularly evoking Gnawa, Celtic, and Islamic Arabic music.

symphony for a fraying body will create a warm and inviting environment, with comfortable seating for visitors to rest, encouraging slowness and understanding of how it feels to be in a body in this moment in time: not alone but as a part of a community linked by shared worry, shared rage, and shared love.

This imagined world will be further activated with a performance by the artist for Dundee’s inaugural Art Night festival on Saturday 24 June. This performance will see Saoirse Amira Anis take on the guise of the mythical creature from her film, animating its ‘tentacles’ with her actions, voice, and movement, releasing the work from the DCA’s galleries to seek the waters of the nearby river Tay.

Saoirse Amira Anis said: Borrowing from histories, mythologies, ecologies and the cultures of my paternal and maternal home-countries, symphony is a fraying body is an interrogation of the ways in which anger arises in my body, and how to respond to it. Despite the personal, bodily root of this show, it is an invitation to the audience to sit with me in acknowledgement of the beauty and power of our collective rage. This show would not exist without pieces of wisdom I’ve gleaned from DCA exhibitions and talks while living in Dundee, so it feels particularly special to bring this work to life in this wonderful city I call home.

Tiffany Boyle, Head of Exhibitions at DCA, said: We’re thrilled to present Saoirse’s work on this scale in Gallery 1 – with a new commission in film, a print edition, publication, and as a performance as part of Art Night this June, it’s exciting to present to audiences the breadth of their practice and support a Dundee-based artist as a crucial moment in their career.

Saoirse Amira Anis grew up in the countryside around Lanark and is now based in Dundee. Her work has been exhibited recently in the form of a solo show at Cample Line, Dumfries, and as part of the Platform commissions for the 2022 Edinburgh Art Festival. Other recent projects include Jupiter Rising, 2021; A Lesson in Vanity, David Dale Gallery and Lux Scotland, July 2021; and We Can Still Dance, Jupiter Artland, as part of the Black Lives Matter Mural Trail.

She recently curated Miss(ing) Information at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, an exhibition that features the work of Tayo Adekunle, Nkem Okwechime, Tako Taal and Natasha Thembiso Ruwona. Since graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Anis has completed residencies at Cove Park, Argyll and Bute, Hospitalfield in Arbroath, and Collemacchia, with the Museum of Loss and Renewal. She was also a committee member at GENERATOR projects from 2018-2021.