Inherently collaborative, Ro works at the blur between discursive, visual and embodied practices; organising with the intention of bringing together a community of queer, trans and non-binary people across performance, noise and contact sports disciplines. Her works emerge as live assemblages entangling the legacies of the body as both subject and object. By redeploying both competitive and collaborative strategies, she produces instances in which language, intimacy and violence are extracted then redistributed as intense affective encounters.
Through her work, Ro addresses the manners in which specific technological, social and material conditions shape, restrict and organise access. Access, in this context, refers both to the ability to enter into and as an outburst of emotion. Hardaker presents nuanced and complex resources for how to bring about haptic care, create new models of inclusivity and provide robust support foundations against increasingly inimical environments.
Hardaker has exhibited and performed work at institutions, venues and festivals internationally, including The Tetley (UK), SPILL Festival of Performance 2014 and 2015 (UK), The Leeds Playhouse (UK), Tate Modern (UK), Queer City Cinema and Performatorium (CA), Uppsala Konst Museum (SE), PAGE: Assembly (FR), Yonder Gallery (UK) and ] Performance s p a c e [ (UK).
Since 2019, Hardaker has been working with professional wrestlers and training in other combat sport disciplines to examine the choreography and mechanisms of violence which trans people are exposed to and alienated by. Along with Leeds based Artist and Wrestler Hannah Lawless, she runs Leeds Queer Wrestling in her East Street Arts temporary studio in Leeds city centre.
Instagram: @ger.hl
Website www.rohardaker.co.uk
Photo Credits:
1. 2021 | Website and Live Performance | Supported by Axis Web Digital Bursary and CLAY (The Centre for Live Art Yorkshire) | Photos by Matt Rogers
2. Leeds Queer Wrestling | 2021 | In photo Hannah, Vee and Ro | photo by Seren Oakley
3. Forgive Yourself of Contemporary Rationality | 2021 | Living Document, 8 scanned A4 pages | Edit of The Junius Pamphlet by Rosa Luxemborg, 1916 | Ro Hardaker with additions by Alicia Radage
4. Headshot photo by Matt Rogers
Other things!
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Event
Walk, Talk, Make! with Yaku Stapleton
Join Yaku Stapleton on a trip to investigate the rich history of New Briggate in a way you haven’t before.
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Event
Take a Walk with Stan Graham
Leeds local Stan Graham shares a lifetime of adventures and anecdotes about New Briggate.
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Event
Special Preview: Colour Folds and Other Things by Andrea Thoma
Join artist and researcher Andrea Thoma for a special preview of her upcoming exhibition Colour Folds and Other Things: the Painted, Photographed and Filmed.
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Artists
Colour Folds and Other Things: A Conversation with Andrea Thoma & Kevin Laycock
Join Andrea Thoma for the closing night of her exhibition Colour Folds and Other Things: the Painting, Photographed and Filmed, where she will be discussing abstraction in contemporary painting with artist, musician and lecturer Kevin Laycock.
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Opportunities
The Climate Residency Call Out
Apply now! East Street Arts are looking for an early careers artist to undertake research as part of The Climate Residency.
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Event
My Environment Summer School 2022
My Environment Summer School 2022