Ziyang Gu,
Art Practitioner, Skater, Educator
Not Ready Yet !
Art Practitioner, Skater, Educator
Not Ready Yet !
“We know as we go.”
(Ingold, 2011)
The body does not always arrive ready. It stretches, hesitates, compensates, holds tension, releases and reforms. Warm-up is not simply preparation for action, but a way of entering through imbalance, uncertainty and adjustment. Between control and loss, injury and repair, the body does not fully resolve; it learns how to continue.
This project emerges from my long-term engagement with figure skating, where entering the ice is always preceded by physical and mental preparation. This experience also extends from a previous programme exploring how skating training could be translated into gallery practice, questioning why bodies are often expected to immediately “understand” exhibition spaces before learning how to enter, fail, repeat and recover. Developed alongside the MA, the work connects embodied pedagogy with choreographic and spatial forms of learning.
Through practice-based exploration, the work develops a spatial and material language that translates bodily conditions. Two garments articulate different states of preparation: one suspended in relation to a moment, the other introducing stretching, resistance and asymmetrical tension. The details draw from elements of skating training, revealing traces of repetition, impact and repair. Together, these materials construct conditions through which the body adjusts, senses and continues. The work further considers embodied learning not as the achievement of readiness, but as an ongoing negotiation between movement, vulnerability and adaptation, where learning takes place through bodily repetition, attention and care.
This project emerges from my long-term engagement with figure skating, where entering the ice is always preceded by physical and mental preparation. This experience also extends from a previous programme exploring how skating training could be translated into gallery practice, questioning why bodies are often expected to immediately “understand” exhibition spaces before learning how to enter, fail, repeat and recover. Developed alongside the MA, the work connects embodied pedagogy with choreographic and spatial forms of learning.
Through practice-based exploration, the work develops a spatial and material language that translates bodily conditions. Two garments articulate different states of preparation: one suspended in relation to a moment, the other introducing stretching, resistance and asymmetrical tension. The details draw from elements of skating training, revealing traces of repetition, impact and repair. Together, these materials construct conditions through which the body adjusts, senses and continues. The work further considers embodied learning not as the achievement of readiness, but as an ongoing negotiation between movement, vulnerability and adaptation, where learning takes place through bodily repetition, attention and care.
Perhaps readiness is never a fixed condition.
Perhaps the body is already trying its best to carry us forward.
Perhaps the body is already trying its best to carry us forward.