Isabella Chydenius: Dancing on my own

Dancing on my own is a site -specific installation consisting of LED light string in a small ventilator room, defining the corners and walls of the confined space. In the middle of the created light square, I’ve organized a pile of ripped clothes into a square on the floor.

The piece is based on the academic and artistic research focused on gender-based (un)safety and sense of belonging in the heterotopian time-space of urban nightclubs culture in current heteropatriarchal time. An element of the research examines the attire of women as a medium that we can express ourselves with and find empowerment through, while often being blamed in cases of sexual harassment and abuse; “she was asking for it by wearing that.”

I approach this body of work and practice from the lens of the colour I’ve titled Club Pink. I work with the colour pink, as I have interpreted the colour from femme and queer nightclubs as a visual metaphor for the collective associations that the spaces foster. Additionally, the square shape is a repeated pattern in my practice. The square represents my examination of the discussed time -space of “safe(r) space” nightclubs from both a physical and theoretical aspect, viewing the dichotomy of the spaces as both limited and liminal. In Dancing on my own, the shape of a square is re-created both through light and ripped clothes, while the ripped clothes and light gestures the potential of both mediums overflowing the square, escaping it’s dictated constructs.