MOVING WITH OBJECTS
with Caroline Hepworth

Date: 
25th - 26th January 2025

Location:
​Wootton Fitzpaine, West Dorset, DT6 6ND

Contact with objects is frequently through the sense of touch.

Touch can be taboo laden as it involves the threshold between the self and other.

We touch and are touched at the same time, threatening the distinction between subject and object.

​This weekend workshop is a unique opportunity to explore this threshold and its implications and ramifications through movement.

Moving with Objects

We are born into a world full of objects that resonate within the mind, the body and the unconscious. We invest them with time, space and emotional energy, ascribing them multiple meanings in the process.

Objects speak to us, they dictate our movements, they constrain us, irritate us, and inspire and delight us. Many mundane objects go unnoticed while others are revered and memorialised.

These revered objects are dramatised by time and ritualised through repetitive movement. They become active symbols living on in the imagination.
Storing information, objects can become holders of memories, histories and dreams. How these objects are presented to us dictates our bodily reactions to them. Behaviour when viewing objects in a museum can differ greatly from the early morning scramble at a car boot sale.

Unfamiliar, unknown or uncanny objects have the power to disturb us whilst art objects can invoke what Proust named ‘involuntary memory’. These involuntary memories move us in ways that can be hard to verbally articulate. Weather, landscape and nature objects can have a similar effect.

We move things and things move us. Our movement, attitudes and the objects in our lives are incontrovertibly linked. 
Objects have consequences

​During this course we will explore and enhance our awareness and understanding of the relationships we have with the objects in our lives. Gaining more insight around object use can change perspectives and give more choice about how we are in the world.

The work will be movement-based and involve found, made and personal objects that you will bring. There will also be some ‘secret’ objects that Caroline will introduce. 

Caroline Hepworth

​Caroline is an artist and mover who has worked with Sandra Reeve for ten years.

At various times in her life she has been a spot-welder, an insurance salesperson, a night club hostess and a trained teacher of children with behavioural difficulties.

A serious midlife illness brought about major changes in her lifestyle. These include the acquisition of a BA in Art and Design and MAs in Printmaking and The Politics of Visual Representation. These studies resulted in her becoming a BA art lecturer in both  Printmaking and Cultural theory.
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Now retired, Caroline is pursuing her own academic and practical research into movement and the use of an object.

Practical details

We will mainly move indoors.
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There will be some theoretical input in the form of handouts, references and discussion points.

Please bring:
  • some small objects everyone could move with
  • a resonant personal object
  • a meaningful non-digital photograph you alone will work with
  • blanket and cushion
  • pens, paper
  • layered clothing
  • snacks, drinks, food for shared lunch. 

Please don’t attend if you're feeling ill.

10am - 5pm both days
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Cost (excluding accommodation)
£150 (£50 deposit)
Earlybird bookings (deposit must be paid by 30th November: £135)

There is plenty of local accommodation at this time of year. 
To book your place, follow this PayPal link, click 'Send', then pay either £50 deposit or the full cost. To pay by bank transfer, contact Caroline: [email protected]
For all other information, contact Caroline: [email protected]