Malin Bülow’s Art Uses Dancers In Elastic Garments To Investigate Tension In The Body

In Bülow’s works, which include the site-specific ‘Firkanta elastisitet – Skulptur i spenn’, ‘Elastic Bonding’, and ‘Elastic Still Lives’, the human body is choreographed to move slowly, linking to other bodies or to a building’s architecture through meters of lycra. In creating this, Bülow aims to investigate “the most natural border of our bodies: the skin,” she says. “Skin is an interpersonal border, a barrier to the inside. I seek to initiate an ambivalent sense of rigidity and flexibility.” In ‘Firkanta elastisitet – Skulptur i spenn’, the artist covered the two entrances of the exhibition space with lycra, thereby locking the audience inside the venue for the duration of the performance. The material stretches across the space, connecting to the performers as they move through various positions. “The bodies seem locked within their own framework, they are literally fixed to and become one with their squared anchoring,” she says of the work. “Their positions are elastic and the materiality is used as a medium for movement. Yet the movements are so still; it’s best described as an elastic sculpture or a performative still life.”