Nicole Bachmann, There are tides in the body (2024)

Exhibition dates: Friday 3 May – Sunday 23 June 2024.

The title of Bachmann’sThere are tides in the body (2024), was taken from Virginia Wolfe’s Mrs Dalloway (1975). The phrase has more recently been used by feminist theorist, Astrida Neimanis, to describe water as a communicator between bodies. For Bachmann, water can connect and separate, it can create and wash away borders. Her work explored the impact of controlled environments on individuals, drawing parallels with journeys made by migrants, often between coastal and urban landscapes. 

Through performances located in Dungeness, Kent and Spon End, Coventry, the artist combined language, poetry and dance to form an embodied vocabulary that moved away from dominant world concepts and beliefs. Through doing this, Bachmann questioned how we can become bodies of social and political change.

This commission was generously supported by The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Migros Kulturprozent, Erna und Curt Burgauer Stiftung and Warwick Arts Centre.

Performers: Nandi Bhebhe, Patricia Langa, Hannah Parsons, Natifah White

Editing: Rafael Sommerhalder, Nicole Bachmann

Sound recording and sound design: Samuel Rodgers