At CAPA College, we are committed to sharing our spaces with local and international artists. During our first year in our new building, we have seen many companies make use of our industry standard spaces; developing new work with their companies and our students. These artists include choreographers, theatre makers and visual artists such as Emily Ryalls.
Dovetails is an experimental moving image piece, bringing together young women - communicating through movement and performance. This piece has become an exploration of what happens when we take up neutral space, connect through shared experience, and create an authentic impression on the elements of our lives that bind us. The performers move together, intertwining and folding into one another, whilst the camera plays the role of documenting our exchanges and body conversations.
This new work from Emily Ryalls, is the latest in an ongoing collection of performances, photographs, and moving image. This collection is rooted in collaborating with women to visually picture the complexities of a shared experience. Ryalls is interested in creating space for women to connect and be seen on healthcare, sexual violence and gender inequality. As these visual explorations grow to frame a collective narrative, they also grow to build community – finding catharsis in co-production.
Emily Ryalls worked with four of our current Year Two Dance Pathway students to create meaningful and responsive movement through a minimal black and white aesthetic.
Emily Ryalls is a Wakefield based artist, working with photography and performance to create spaces and works around the themes of connection and representation. Her practice is rooted in blurring the lines between a divided photographer/subject relationship; creating meaningful and collaborative works that can prompt conversation on the role of photography as a non-exploitive means of co-production and connection.
In 2019 Emily was nominated for BJP's Ones to Watch and in February 2023; her work was published within the BJP Photography and Performance Issue. Ryalls’ work has featured in exhibitions across the UK, the most recent being Reframing Reclaiming (Oct 2022- Feb 23); a group exhibition of emerging female and non-binary photographers’ work, produced following a mentorship with Hannah Starkey and sitting in conjunction with Starkey’s retrospective at The Hepworth.
Other notable shows are Photo50 London Art Fair 2022: Doing & Undoing Islands; a collaboration between Emily Ryalls and Tom Lovelace, unfolding as a live performance, following a valuable yearlong mentoring programme with Tom Lovelace, facilitated by Advance (Creative England). She led on the build and development of a fully wheelchair accessible darkroom within The Art House, which she now programmes and manages as the only fully accessible darkroom in the country, promoting process and learning through interactions with others.
Suitable for 14+
