Check and refuse if damaged

‘Check and refuse if damaged’ is currently in creation. The work explores the shame integrated within our bodies, how this shame can lead to our protective concealment and also an endless restriction. The body is placed within a large yellow shipping bag bearing the work’s title. The bag not only represents restriction and concealment, but it also transforms the body into a consumer item. We are all, in some way, wounded, and this work aims to draw attention to our universal sense of brokenness. The idea of capitalism leaves no space for our true broken selves to be witnessed and held, perhaps even healed. It relies on our bodies as tools of labour to keep an economy in motion. Within the bag, the dancer traces through memory, as the bag provides both abstraction and limitation. The body has the choice to leave the bag, share the shame they hold with others, or continue to remain concealed within their safety.