A Body Populated was a work in progress performance with small ceramic objects by choreographer Emma Lewis-Jones. The work addresses the insights of life in lockdown given by 100 women in the artist’s immediate community in Nottingham.

Emma conducted socially distanced interviews with the women with whom she had maintained contact during the pandemic. These are people who live on her street, who she’s worked with online, the refugees and asylum seekers and mentees she’s remained close to over many months. She has asked these women what had affected them most during lockdown and, in particular, what they had found to be most pertinent in the media.

As a direct result of Emma’s observations of statistics in the news, she designed a project that uses small uniform ceramic objects to explain data in clear, choreographic language. The women’s interviews informed the themes in the performance: the ceramics express the data collected in the research and each woman has a presence in the work.

These sculptural forms balanced on the artist’s body, rolling and re-re-re-configured, explain the stunningly sad truth in simple, visuals; all to the soundtrack of the voices of influence; 100 women.