SARAH AIKEN (tools for personal expansion) is a study into social, digital & physical means of expanding the self. Existing simultaneously between digital & physical formats; I augment & expand my self, engaging the performers and audience to do my bidding, extending my ability to act on the world through every platform and making sure everyone remembers my name.

It is about personal power, about attempts to be heard and seen, to take up space and allow identity to expand beyond physical limitation but also, considering finite resources, the compromises that facilitate these expansions.

SARAH AIKEN looks at how we live in the world, the versions of ourselves we curate, our output, achievements and the versions that others hold of us; how much we control these variants, and how much they shape us. The work critiques the gendered occupation of space and the worship of progress, development and continual growth, observing what retracts as we reach further.

Considering environmental, social and emotional repercussions of a culture driven by reach, progress & personal branding, the work holds within it the tension between ambition, empowerment and sustainability.What is reduced in these attempts at expansion?

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SARAH AIKEN (tools for personal expansion) is touring to Metro Arts Brisbane in December 2017