Among the vacant halls of a 1970s office space, artist Daria Blum takes viewers through images of her grandmother, Ukrainian ballet, and her own dancing. In her U.K. solo debut—“Drip Drip Point Warp Spin Buckle Rot”—Blum harnesses her performance prowess to levy architectural forms and movement as an exploration of the body.
A writer, musician, dancer, artist, and performer, Blum unites her myriad talents in a transcendent audiovisual installation at Claridge’s ArtSpace. The Central Saint Martins and the Royal Academy alum and inaugural winner of the Claridge’s Royal Academy Schools Art Prize—granting recipients £30,000 and a solo exhibition—here crafts an engaging critique on the confines of femininity—Marina Abramović approved.
CULTURED: What is your art about and how do you bring it to life?
Daria Blum: I have a background in dance, and a passion for music, and I’ve always been interested in “performance” in a wide sense. My mother ran a ballet school in Lucerne, Switzerland, where I took and taught classes from childhood into my 20s, and my dad and I listened to a lot of music together growing up—I’ve always wanted to create and perform my own material.
In my live performances, I often conflate the stage and real life by dramatizing autobiographical events, and building upon relationships and interactions I have with acquaintances or strangers. I portray various female characters who are, in some way, dissatisfied with the way they are expected to behave: immature, bratty, self-important, or angry women. I’m interested in the ways expressing emotion is repressed and gendered, and question why we label people—women especially—as irritating, “too much,” or “not enough.”
I also work with video and photography. I make music and write texts, often multiplying my characters across these various mediums to create dialogues between them. My live persona either debates or duets with her “static” counterparts, and opposing views are expressed via these different voices, and roles.
CULTURED: How do you feel about winning the award at Claridge's?
Blum: When Marina Abramović read out my name I wasn’t at all prepared—it was an incredible moment. I’m really grateful to have received this support during my first year out of the RA Schools postgraduate course. Awards like the Claridge’s prize can be hugely transformative for an artist, especially considering the general lack of funding for the arts, in the U.K. and beyond.
Having a dedicated team to support me in the making of my show has been a wonderful experience, and I’ve learned a lot over the last few months. I’m really excited to be able to put on a large-scale show which builds upon and expands the piece I presented for my degree show, and I hope my work will reach and resonate with a wide audience.
CULTURED: What can people expect from your solo show?
Blum: My show centers around a three-channel video work that follows a fictional character through deserted rooms and corridors of a disused 1970s office building. The protagonist comes across a cache of materials that she reclaims and restages: black and white portraits of her late grandmother, the Ukrainian ballerina Daria Nyzankiwska-Snihurowycz, archival recordings of dance rehearsals, and footage of one of her own performances from 2022.
Through a series of live performances, I will further inhabit a live character who disrupts and criticizes, pointing fingers at the bodies on-screen and the voices offstage. In working on this show, I researched ideas around embodiment, how abstract knowledge is contained within dance, the relationship between physical space and muscle memory, and how architecture might remember bodies moving through it. In the video piece, the character takes stock of the building’s state of deterioration and the water damage that afflicts its interior, and I also thematize architectural maintenance as a means to address bodily pain and female relationships.
CULTURED: What did winning this award give you the chance to pursue?
Blum: The subterranean gallery space [at ArtSpace] has an elongated layout to which I was immediately drawn, and my idea to create a raised platform around the perimeter of the space came to me as soon as I viewed the space for the first time. I had previously watched the documentary about Claridge’s expansion below ground, which I found fascinating. This construction work also posed certain challenges related to water leakage in the ground. Our own flat had been recently flooded and, at the time, my thoughts were “immersed” in high water and flooding as metaphors for loss and new beginnings.
CULTURED: What are you planning next?
Blum: I’ve been completely absorbed in conceiving this show, and have had a busy year, with a group show at Ilenia in London and a residency and performance at CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain in Bordeaux. At the moment I am not overplanning the future—instead, I’m really looking forward to dedicating time to my writing and to recording new music. I’ve wanted to release a new EP for some time now.
