You Move Me

Laura Wilson and Dr Ellie Cosgrave: UCL Performing Place

As part of UCL Culture’s Performing Place, artist Laura Wilson and Dr Ellie Cosgrave collaborated on You Move Me, exploring Cosgrave’s urban research on the interrelationship between gender and urban infrastructure, and artist Laura Wilson’s research on civic histories and labour; how information is passed on from one person to another through movement; and recent performances investigating how the body learns, adapts, responds and performs.

There was a period of community engagement with older residents in Camden as part of Dragon Trust to explore how they move around the city in relation to their personal histories, before the project was interrupted by Covid-19. Laura and Ellie carried on the conversations they had started with community members, communicating with each other by letter and zoom. These musings turned into walks, which eventually became a performance piece. I joined them early one sunny December morning in 2020, grateful to be out filming again and moving through the city myself with others.

Performing Place, produced by Sylvia Kluczewski, brought together live performance artists, Camden communities and researchers in the co-creation of live performance. It is part of the Performance Lab series, where artists, researchers and students explore how live performance can animate research – and how research can inspire art.