Adam James

My practice works across sculpture, performance, and moving image. Using roleplay, participatory scores, and choreographed interaction, I explore how groups, materials, and ideas come into friction. Rather than seeking harmony, the work foregrounds tension, failure, and fragile moments of togetherness that emerge through play and embodied negotiation. The live works are often non-verbal, using movement, task, and spatial design to produce unpredictable forms of collectivity. Their gestural, verbal, and material traces inform later sculptural and filmic work. I divide my time between collaborative public projects and studio production at a rural sawmill, where I work with reclaimed wood, foam, and text-based sculptural forms. Across these forms, I examine empathy through collective action.