symphony for a fraying body

Dundee Contemporary Arts

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About the publication

We are delighted to publish a new chapbook as part of Dundee-based artist Saoirse Amira Anis’s solo exhibition at DCA; both titled symphony for a fraying body. The chapbook contains newly commissioned texts by writer, publisher and curator Sarah Shin, and artist, writer and curator Jamie Donald.

The exhibition marks the first major UK show by Anis, whose practice encompasses sculpture, performance, photography, film, writing and drawing and prioritises radical care, informality and empathy. Anis’s work is informed by Black queer literature, her personal ancestry and her own body as it moves through the world. She incorporates bodily knowledge and care into each facet of her work, considering the ways in which the body holds ancestral and lived memories.

Date June 2023
Edition of 400
Design Maeve Redmond
ISBN 978-1-8382711-4-5
Dimensions 19 x 14.2cm
Pages 28

About Saoirse Amira Anis

Saoirse Amira Anis grew up in the countryside near Lanark and is now based in Dundee. Her work has been exhibited recently in the form of a solo show at Campleline, Dumfries, and as part of the Platform commissions for the 2022 Edinburgh Art Festival. Other recent projects include: Jupiter Rising, Jupiter Artland, 2021; A Lesson in Vanity, David Dale Gallery and LUX Scotland, 2021; and We Can Still Dance, Jupiter Artland, as part of the Black Lives Matter Mural Trail. Since graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Anis has completed residencies at Cove Park, Argyll and Bute; Hospitalfield in Arbroath; and Collemacchia, with the Museum of Loss and Renewal. In 2022, she curated Miss(ing) Information at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, and was a committee member at GENERATORprojects from 2018–2021.

About Sarah Shin

Sarah Shin is a writer, publisher and curator whose work includes making books, texts, gardens, games, scents, spaces, portals and practices. She is a founder of Ignota, a creative publishing house; Silver Press, the feminist publisher; New Suns, a literary festival and curatorial project at the Barbican Centre; and Standard Deviation, a spatial practice exploring the coincidence of psychic, geometric and inhabited space.

About Jamie Donald

Jamie Donald is an artist, writer, and curator, living and working in Dundee. A graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, she served on the committee of artist-led organisation GENERATORprojects from 2019 to 2021. She undertakes various ventures as part of an ongoing collaborative project, Wooosh Gallery, that occupies the Miller’s Wynd car park on Dundee’s Perth Road.