British curator Bryony Stone’s brand recent exhibition all in: bodied is a love letter to the female-identifying body in motion. Stone arrange her platform ‘all in:’ in 2017, and has already curated two successful exhibitions on mental health and across the notion of progress. Nonetheless, after her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, leading to a mastectomy, Stone was left occupied with people’s relationships with their bodies, most notably women’s. “The operation limited her ability to maneuver her body in the best way that she was used to, and he or she needed to learn how you can move through the world with a recent form of body,” Stone says.

Inspired by people’s perceptions of the bodies they exist in, Stone is working with 4 female artists, designer Sinéad O’Dwyer, artist Zoe Marden, choreographer Grace Nicol and dance artist Becky Namgauds, to create an immersive exhibition – all in: bodied which is made up of a movie and two live performances, one by Marden and a second choreographed by Nicol and Namgauds through which they reply to custom-made wearable sculptures designed by RCA MA fashion graduate Sinéad O’Dwyer, which may also be on show within the exhibition. “I’ve made garments for Becky and Zoe to wear while performing and so in developing them I have been reflecting on the connection between the still body that I capture during lifecasting and the body in motion,” Sinéad says.

“Slip Mould Slippery explores the violence of the troubling object/body distinction,” says Nicol. “The live work will consider how the specificity of Becky Namgaud’s female body, layered with the lifecast shape of Sinead’s muse’s body, can stand in for all female bodies and find power inside the collective notion of self – body, object and experience.”

The exhibition may also feature a movie by Zoe Marden that explores the twin beauty and monstrosity of mythological creatures equivalent to mermaids, selkies, sirens and all of their cousins. “The Mermaid blurs the boundary between women and fish, femininity and ferocity, land and sea, human and other,” says Marden. “These mythological creatures transgress the borders between human and non-human with their carnal appetites spilling over to challenge notions of the female.” “Zoe’s performance and film is a retort to the fairytale mermaid and takes inspiration from the dark side of mermaid myths, luring what she terms “the princes of patriarchy” to watery graves,” Stone adds.

While the reclaiming of the feminine form has a long-standing history inside art, on this post #metoo climate a robust reclaiming equivalent to this feels much more pertinent.

all in: bodied can be on show at Galleria Mellissa from 19-Twenty first October.