Derry exhibition exploring body movement through play and reconnecting to the wold around us

The exhibition looks at the malleability and ever-evolving nature of clay and the link between clay and human bones as well as how the movement in play helps to build resilience both mentally and physically. Mahon says this aspect of play and understanding our bodies also enables us to be more connected to the world around us as well as each other.

Gail said: “I studied art, it was Limavady College, now Northern West Regional College, that's where I did my foundation before I went on to Manchester University. I studied Ceramics and Metalwork there, and I returned home again to Northern Ireland to start the Making-it Program, Craft NI. As my work developed, I found that sculpture and installation were more my route, so it took me back to studying again for my Masters at the Royal College of Art. I've always been active as a cultural producer, curating exhibitions, working in collaboration with people, and developing projects. I've worked in artist groups called Mak9, and another group that I founded, CAAKE, which is Collaborative Art in a Kinetic Environments. Working with creative partner, Tara Murphy, we are developing our project into a community-interest company to offer public opportunities to explore art, ecology and movement in connection to the outdoors.

"In a parallel life to my creative art, ceramics and making, has been this physicality of running, training and lifting and dancing, and really just having an interest in movement. After I'd finished my masters, I was talking about the body and systems that we're all involved with more culturally, and it felt that I had to be involved in the work directly, so this is where the performative aspect merged.”

"I also exhibited in Galway Arts Centre, where I was working with a dancer but I was also part of that performance and it became apparent to me that I need to up the game for my work. This is where I started taking training more intensively and I learned that this is part of the way I think with clarity; I need to move. It's Called kinaesthetic thinking.”

Gail will be beginning her PhD studies in September, where she will be using a transdisciplinary approach to study ceramics. She said: “Ceramics has a long human history; when you think of archaeological sites and they dig up bones, there's always shards of ceramics that are part of trying to read between the lines of how we would have lived, how we would have interacted. When we think of our culture through industry, through mechanisation, through technology, we're actually finding we're removing less and less. Our health, and our bone health particularly, is deteriorating, specifically more so for women.”

"There's a social underlying in being seen as the weaker sex or images in the media in the last 50 years, where women ideals are portrayed as being very thin and model-like. There's this new dialogue now about understanding female physiology, and that much of scientific background or previous research trials has been based on young male groups. So, realising now that the dialogue is changing, it's not just about equality; not only do women want to be involved in sports and have same equality, it's actually that we are different, physiologically, so we have different needs. In performance and sport, there's lots of cultural shifts at the minute, so it's a really interesting time.”

Gail is a Natural Movement trainer and is active across CrossFit, powerlifting, dancing. Significantly increasing her movement variety in recent years, she encourages everyone to listen to their body, get outside, move more, in any way at all.

"I've actually found that once I've done a lot of heavy lifting or training, you kind of tap into another side of yourself, your sense of your body. The sensations in your body are very heightened, and your brain becomes quieter, so you kind of find a balance in understanding what your body needs. It’s like the calm after the storm. Our bones need to work hard to be strong, to be healthy, and we have more financial means now that we're kind of losing the idea that we need to physically lift things. Subtle changes every day, getting up to press the button on the TV more, instead of the remote. All those devices that we have been slowly eating away at our movement capacity, little by little, and with that our bones and our health. I'm not against technology, we're learning through technology, but it has to be a tool that we can set down and we have to be capable without technology as well.

"It's early days in this project, but I'm hoping we can start that conversation about how we move and how we interact with our bodies. For now, clay as being a conduit to thinking about landscape and nature, and our own bodies being malleable and shaped by our culture.”

The exhibition will be open Tuesday – Saturday, June 20-24 from 12pm to 5pm. Viewing is by appointment only and a number of workshops will also be held during this time. For more information, visit artarcadia.org.

This project is funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Derry City & Strabane District Council.