Included in exhibition admission 

21 January 2023
10:15am, 11:15am, 1:15pm, 2:15pm, 3:15pm 

‘Thinking-through images’ is a live dance intervention from Creative Producer and dancer Tala Lee-Turton and Creative Photographer Xenia Bakshinskaya in collaboration with and in response to Zara Worth’s installation Think of a door (temptation/redemption). Over the course of the day Lee-Turton and Bakshinskaya will use movement and live image-making to catalyse the installation’s potential for participation. Informed by detailed hand movement that Lee-Turton draws upon from an array of contemporary dance practitioners, and by posing, in the contexts of vogue, ballet and yoga, the performances will manifest elements of the installation’s imagery, borrowing hand gestures from the religious architecture, icons and social media content which are combined within Worth’s sculptural and pictorial compositions. Through simultaneous image capture including Instagram live recordings, photography and videography, ‘Thinking-through images’ reveals Worth’s installation as an image to be participated in. 

Zara Worth

Zara Worth is a visual artist and researcher living and working in Northern England. Her work explores how online cultures, religious icons, and the work of art through can be read through themes of value, presence and belief systems. Currently Worth is undertaking a practice-led PhD in Fine Art with Leeds Beckett University, UK, using analogy within visual art practice to explore how Eastern Orthodox icons might help us think about Web 2.0’s culture and technologies. Her large-scale multi-component installations often feature gilding and LED lighting, resulting in luminous artworks which invite audiences to create their own images of and with them. You can read more about her research in her latest two book chapters, co-authored with fellow artist Dr Dawn Woolley, ‘Creative Consumption: Art About Eating on Instagram’ in ‘Food Instagram published with the University of Illinois Press, and ‘God Shaped Hole’ in ‘Painting, Photography, and the Digital: Crossing the Borders of the Mediums’, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. www.zaraworth.com

Xenia Bakshinskaya  

Xenia is a professional photographer, model and photography studio owner based in Sheffield. She trained at Perm Ballet College in Russia and then moved to the UK and gained a Choreography degree at York St. John University and a masters degree in Marketing and Brand Management from Oxford Brookes University. Xenia toured Europe performing in classical ballets and she has also taught students at Dance United Yorkshire. She also stage managed for Flight Effect Dance Company and Gradient Company. She opened Zavod Studio in Sheffield in 2021.  

Tala Lee-Turton 

Tala Lee-Turton is a British Chinese Creative Producer for dance onstage and onscreen, dancer, and graduate of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Moscow, from South Yorkshire. She produces female-led, diverse and multidisciplinary work that connects audiences and creatives to impactful dance experiences, challenging cultural and social boundaries. Her live performance work is supported by Arts Council England, the Genesis Foundation, and Sheffield City Council, whilst her trajectory as an emerging filmmaker is being fuelled by her places on Screen Yorkshire and Birds Eye View’s competitive development programmes, FLEX and Filmonomics respectively. Tala’s productions all explore marginalised voices, particularly those telling intersectional working class stories.