Dorich House Museum

Join us at Dorich House Museum across three days in May while Dance Artist Rosalind Holgate-Smith exhibits the Pleasure Patchwork, an interactive soft sculpture in the form of a crochet blanket made of worm-like, phallic and invaginated forms that can be turned inside out. Inspired by the skin, the blanket invites touch and explorations in receptivity and pleasure, questioning how much it is possible to feel in our everyday actions in the world. Over the three days, we will host a programme of dance performances, workshops, and talks from Rosalind and her collaborator Katharina Krenkel, the sculptor who crocheted the blanket. Please feel warmly invited to come and interact with this wormy underworld. See the lineup of events below.

Please note: The Pleasure Patchwork will be exhibited in the Modelling Studio throughout all three days, except during the Friday lunchtime talk and pop-up performances when the blanket will be found elsewhere.

Thursday 15 May

The Pleasure Patchwork Exhibited | 11am – 5pm | Free | Drop in

See, touch and interact the Pleasure Patchwork as it is exhibited in the Modelling Studio. Meet the artists behind its construction.

Crochet with Pleasure Workshop | 12 noon – 4pm | £5 | Book here

In this workshop, the sculptor Katharina Krenkel will guide you to crochet small sculptural toys to fiddle and snuggle with. In making our 3D forms we will explore ways of enfolding, contracting, extending and expanding space. All participants must be able to crochet. Please bring wool and your crochet hook(s) (the smaller the crochet hook in relation to the yarn, the firmer the crocheted piece becomes). 

Friday 16 May

Touch Talk with the Artists | 1pm – 2:30pm | £5 | Book here

Over lunchtime, join Rosalind Holgate-Smith and her collaborator Katharina Krenkel around the dining table at Dorich House Museum. The talk will begin with a somatic invitation to touch, fumble and feel the Pleasure Patchwork, which will be laid out on the table. Following some time for feedback, Rosalind will discuss how the blanket relates to her PhD research concerning touch and the vocabulary used in the dance of Contact Improvisation. She will share her research findings, including reflections on how people can navigate bubbling emotions, thoughts, desires, discomfort and pain, through how touch is embodied and applied. Rosalind will also talk about the vocabulary of touch techniques developed through her research that stands to enhance empathy, agency, presence, consensual awareness and compassionate and expressive communication skills. While initially designed for dancers, Rosalind’s vocabulary proposes relevance for how touch is experienced and applied in health and social care, in design, in daily social interactions, and for how we relate to the environment.

Pop-Up Performances | 3pm – 4pm | Free | Drop in

Pop up performances in and around Dorich House Museum relating to the work.

Saturday 17 May

Pleasure Performances | 12 noon – 1pm & 2pm – 3pm | Free | Drop in

Performances featuring live music and dance inviting explorations in pleasure, rest and tactile play. During these performances, crochet artist Katherina Krenkel will be sewing more parts of the Pleasure Patchwork together. Come and watch the blanket grow!

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The Pleasure Patchwork represents a collaboration between Dance Artist and Choreographer Rosalind Holgate-Smith, and Sculptor Katharina Krenkel.

Featuring:
Musician: Ansuman Biswas
Dancers:  Rosalind Holgate Smith, Katja Richter and Zoe Solomons 

Bios:

Rosalind Holgate Smith is a Dance Artist and Choreographer working between the UK and Berlin. She creates performances and installations that explore intimacy between people, place and the environment. In her art and teaching Rosalind takes inspiration from Contact Improvisation and somatic training in Body-Mind CenteringⓇ, Skinner Release Technique, Authentic Movement, Martial arts and outdoor dancing.  Over the past 5 years, Rosalind has been working on a PhD at Kingston University, investigating how touch makes possible encounters with Otherness, and the vocabulary of touch used in Contact Improvisation. https://rosalindholgate-smith.com/

Katharina Krenkel is a crochet sculptor and graphic artist based in Saarbrucken, south Germany. She works with lines of the thread, the ink brush, the pencil, and embroidery needle. Her art which takes time, explores everyday challenges and prompts a humorous engagement with the body, the domestic, order and history. https://www.katharina-krenkel.de

Follow on Instagram: @rosalindholgatesmith, @kittys_fuzzy_world, @pleasure_patchwork