Lotte Andersen is a multi-talented artist who has engaged many streams; the likes of video, sound, performance and print.
Her latest project Dance Therapy; Do it once do it right is currently on display at London’s The Hive Holborn as part of Breaking Shells curated by Justine Do Espirito Santo at the Koppel Project until 10 March.
The Display is a research-based artwork using Andersen’s experience creating club nights and inspired by her London club night, MAXILLA.
The art installation looks at dance as a form of therapy and explores human pleasure seeking and the transcendent nature of club spaces by photographing people in a state of totally unabashed happiness.
“I find the concept of physical therapy and bodywork interesting, and specifically the ways in which we can heal trauma through connection to the body, Lotte Andersen said in an interview with Dazed.
“Dance Therapy was naturally informed by my own early explorations into club culture, music and dance. The club always felt like a site where I could be me and physically express myself in a body that I couldn’t always control.
“These experiences were so spiritual and visceral that I set out to try and capture those fleeting moments of euphoria and transcendence in a reimagined club space.”
Anderson describes Dance Therapy as a project split into two parts. She calls the first part ‘capture parties’, where the public are invited to take part in the work and become multi-channel video installations, where the viewer is placed within the artwork.
Asked how Dance Therapy fits in with Breaking Shells, Andersen explains the show seeks to examine the body from a female perspective with the show taking place in two parts.
The first half at Baker Street explores narratives and representations of the body, both from a historical and a contemporary point of view featuring work by Chelsea Culprit, Penny Goring, Rachel Jones, Jessie Makinson, Jala Wahid and Zoe Williams.
The second half of Dance Therapy at The Hive in Holborn sits alongside works by Hannah Perry and Shana Moulton. The second space seeks to create a space where the body can set itself free from the social and cultural constraints.
Andersen is also presenting a five-panelled black and white print, named ‘Body party, vingt-huits’ she made especially for Breaking Shells where she uses her body for her work exploring techniques of psychological disassociation from unprocessed trauma stored in her body both physically and emotionally.
The print is supposed to suggest the ideas of ‘fragmented and lost identity’ that Andersen felt through sustaining and recovering from a traumatic head injury over the last six months.
When asked what she hopes people take away from Dance Therapy, Andersen says she wants people to leave feeling elated, energised and optimistic, describing a sensation of feeling surrounded and watched.
“It struck me how interpreting the experience of being surrounded by constantly shifting supersized moving bodies was totally dependent on who is watching.” She said.
Unfortunately Dance Therapy is no longer showing, but at the rate Lotte Anderson has been creating we’re sure another wonderful collection is already in the works.
