Saturday 28 September 15.10-15.50 repeated 17.10-17.50.
This new work in progress, choreographed and performed by Robert Ssempijja, explores the real and perceived boundaries of our imagination.
Inspired by Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Robert Laughlin’s explanation of bound states in his book A Different Universe, Ssempijja has been exchanging ideas with physicists at the Cavendish Laboratory on real or perceived limitations to knowing and imagining, whether in physics, art or society, and about potential ways of re-imagining.
This event is free to attend and open to all. To reserve a place please email alumni@girton.cam.ac.uk or call +44 (0)1223 764 935.
Robert Ssempijja
Ugandan artist, dancer and researcher Robert Ssempijja was selected as Cavendish Arts Science Fellow at Girton College 2023-24, from an international open call.
His work draws on connections at a sensual and sensory level to explore things that spoken language cannot always explain, and that are too difficult talk about out loud. He explores the past, present and future in order to re-imagine traditional narratives, and aims to share experiences to take viewers on journeys of self-discovery while confronting decolonial questions about the nature of home and belonging.
Ssempijja has worked with choreographers including Christoph Winkler (Germany), Nora Chipaumire (New York/Zimbabwe) and Qudus Onikeku (Nigeria), dance companies and festivals across three continents, combining Ugandan traditional dance, breakdance and contemporary dance to develop new aesthetics and art forms.
He uses movement to delve deep into the secrets hidden within our bodies, seeking to access new realms of information through the use of time, space and body. His work looks to reshape rhythms and redefine how we see ourselves, our community and our world. (Photo by Franke Jacob).
The Cavendish Arts Science (CAS) Fellowship
The annual Cavendish Arts Science Fellowship is delivered through a partnership between Girton College and Cavendish Arts Science, an initiative of the Cavendish Laboratory for Physics, thanks to the vision and generous support of Girton alumna Dr Una Ryan OBE (1963).
The Fellowship is designed to support artists to develop thought-provoking ideas through engagement with physicists and those in other fields, and experiment with new approaches to their practice that are transformative and push boundaries.
The Cavendish Arts Science Fellowship at Girton College is a unique collaborative opportunity open to artists internationally and not confined to any single aesthetic, theme or medium. CAS Fellows are supported to spend one year immersing themselves in conversations with a wide range of physicists at the Cavendish Laboratory and engaging with Fellows of various disciplines at Girton College during their residency period in Cambridge.
Previous CAS Fellows include experimental filmmaker Logan Dandridge, who brought specific interests in memory, non-linear time and Black experience, and artist and composer Ain Bailey, who brought an interest in multi-channel sound, architectural acoustics and the constellation of sounds that form individual and community identities.
The Cavendish Arts Science programme creates collective encounters between art and science that explore the world, our humanity, and our place in the world. It creates new spaces to re-imagine material and immaterial universes and supports artistic work that questions traditional centring of voices and ways of knowing.
For any questions regarding the event please email alumni@girton.cam.ac.uk.