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FRAMELESS is proud to have presented ‘Bodies Unbound’, a powerful immersive artist residency created in collaboration with the Royal College of Art (RCA).
Shown in our Blank Canvas Gallery, this three-part digital installation invited audiences to discover how movement can be a powerful language of identity, resistance, and joy.
Take a look below for more details on this immersive residency.
Our continued collaboration with the Royal College of Art, offers a platform for emerging digital artists. The show ‘Bodies Unbound’ is brought to you by 4 artists from the Digital Direction MA course at the RCA – Sai Ma, Kashish Gakhar, Alexis Obue and Yuchen Li.
Tom Simmons, Head of Programme, MA Digital Direction at RCA, said, “It’s incredible to see the work of our alumni reaching such broad audiences. Their ability to tell important stories through digital art exemplifies the power of creativity in understanding the world around us.”
Sai Ma
“Dancers are like warriors, the body can be our most powerful weapon. Each posture is a claim for freedom.”
‘The Pulse Within’ tells the story of Shirley Elle, a leading figure in Voguing Shanghai, the first ballroom and voguing platform in mainland China. The piece reflects on how movement creates space for self-expression, joy, and defiance within the LGBTQ+ community.
Blending real and virtual dance worlds, the film imagines a future where bodies transcend limits of time, space, and societal expectations. Through bold, expressive performances, it celebrates the resilience of a community that refuses to be erased.
Dance becomes a universal language that connects across borders and identities. It speaks when words cannot, and it unites individuals through shared emotion and rhythm. ‘The Pulse Within’ invites viewers to witness the beauty and strength of movement as a form of cultural memory, personal freedom, and collective hope.
Yuchen Li
‘Rebuild Ruins – Escape’ is a digital dance-based video work that explores how freedom can be felt through the body rather than defined by words. Set in desolate, ruin-like spaces, the piece follows dancers as they search for moments of liberation through movement, breath, and presence.
In a world shaped by invisible structures, the body becomes the most direct medium to experience and express freedom. Without choreography or script, dancers respond instinctively to space and silence. Their gestures are acts of resistance and of reclaiming time and space for the self. Every breath is amplified. Every step leaves a trace.
Through sound and movement, the body inscribes its own understanding of freedom onto the environment. Motion trails and echoes become fleeting imprints of presence, proof that freedom is not a concept, but a lived, embodied state
This piece positions the body as a sensor of truth. It asks what freedom feels like when words fall silent, and how we might reclaim it through movement in ruins both external and within.
Kashish Gakhar & Alexis Obue
‘The Veil’ explores how patriarchal shame becomes internalised and expressed through the body. It draws on the artists’ own experiences with visibility, identity, and self-censorship in the face of social judgment.
Blending digital projections with movement, the piece combines two contrasting dance styles. Kathak is used for its storytelling depth and historical resilience, having moved from sacred performance to cultural stigma and back again. Heels dance incorporates the stiletto, a symbol of objectification now reimagined as a tool of empowerment and sensuality.
Working with somatic therapists, the artists examine how shame is stored in the body. Movement becomes a language for release and transformation. Concealment and exposure are not opposites but part of a negotiation between identity and protection.
‘The Veil’ invites audiences into this emotional landscape. It is a powerful meditation on how women navigate agency and oppression through movement, and how dance can serve as both a shield and a form of protest.
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