Ruth Buckley

Ruth is a designer maker based in Edinburgh. She specialises in ceramics and is a digital making technician at the University of Edinburgh, uCreate Makerspace.

Her work aims to capture the joy and movement of swing dance, translating it into large scale sculptures and installations. She has been a dancer for 9 years, an active member and teacher within the Edinburgh swing dance community, with whom she works closely. Ruth’s love of dance stems from its ability to provide moments of connection, the main aim of her work being to create snapshots of the intangible nature of dance and movement. She uses this subject matter to push what digital tools are capable of, visualising the multiple layers of abstraction of the dance in motion. She moves swing dance into the modern era, while preserving its identity.

This work started in 2024, when Ruth explored how 3D scanning could be used to record a pair of dancers, but quickly evolved, with an emphasis on capturing a whole dance community. Her process involves running community light painting workshops and videoing the experience with a 360 camera. The workshops consist of each dancer being handed a light, the movement trails of which are recorded by the camera. Stills are taken from this video and stacked to create long exposure photographs. These photos are digitally translated into 3D forms, which are then 3D printed. The 3D printed forms are hand cast in either ceramic or glass, resulting in the final sculptural forms. With the spanning of multiple disciplines, her practice invites reflection on human interaction.

Her methods allow for digital techniques to be showcased through analogue forms. They highlight how the combining of processes results in otherwise unachievable tactile forms, preserving lost moments. The intangible is made tangible through her sculptural artworks. The use of traditional craft materials for the final sculptures also sparks engagement with digital tools for the viewer, making the digital world more approachable. As a digital making technician, whose desire to teach and break down information exists both in the workshop and the dance hall, this is an important consideration within Ruth’s creative practice.