Dancing through Life: Erin Rose Boyle
This winter, the Arts League presents Dancing through Life, an exhibition by Erin Rose Boyle, and a half day workshop co-led by Boyle and the University of Pennsylvania’s Sung Robotics Lab. Boyle was awarded the artist-in-residence with Sung Robotics Lab in the summer of 2025. Research at the Sung Robotics Lab includes a variety of projects about origami-based design for robots and mechanisms, and the lab collaborates with artists to engage the public about how origami connects art and engineering. The exhibition brings together the resulting sculptural works and photographic constructions that incorporate origami-inspired robotic elements. Through gentle motion and shifting light, Dancing through Life invites viewers to consider the delicate choreography of everyday existence. At the workshop on February 7th participants are invited to make their own dancing cube inspired by a series of dancing cube forms developed during Boyle’s kinetic studies at the residency.
Working closely with PhD Student Mentor Daniel Feshbach along with Penn engineers, students, and faculty Boyle explored the creative potential of origami-inspired robotic technologies bridged with her contemporary visual practice. Throughout the residency, Boyle had access to advanced fabrication tools, engineering mentorship, and a designated studio space at The Arts League in West Philadelphia. This residency fused Boyle’s materially driven process with a movement-driven exploration of origami forms, which were animated through Arduino-driven motors, sensors, and joystick experiments to emphasize kinetic activation and playful, responsive motion.
In Dancing through Life, Boyle employs mechatronics within the artworks, enabling a subtle internal gesture—a pulse, a breath, a quiet reconsideration of form. At the center of the exhibition are “Dancing Cubes,” intertwined structures that resemble stacked cubes at rest. When gently rocked by a servo motor attached to a mechanical arm, they sway back and forth, slipping out of their rigid geometry and into something more animated and playful. Their rhythmic, back-and-forth dance becomes a small choreography of balance and imbalance, structure and collapse, discipline and improvisation. The collage works extend this logic of transformation: built from layered photographic images of cityscapes, environments, and transitional spaces, the surfaces appear to pixelate and shimmer as the tiles and woven sections merge. What first appears as a static photograph reveals a new geometry with just a gesture of the hand or a slight shift of weight.
Through the integration of Arduino-based coding and mechanical systems including crank and slider mechanisms developed during her time at the Sung Lab, Boyle’s works generate a space of continual becoming. The sculptures occupy an in-between terrain where play becomes a design principle and engineering becomes an avenue for imagination. These pieces do not simply depict transformation; they enact it, inviting viewers to engage with art that actively transforms.
We invite you to experience the transformative power of Dancing through Life and witness how Erin Rose Boyle has advanced her practice to reveal new ways art can move, respond, and transform. The exhibition is open for viewing at The Arts League at 4226 Spruce Street during gallery hours 12 PM - 6 PM daily. Join us for the public reception on Tuesday, February 10th, from 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM.
To deepen your understanding of this work, you are invited to the workshop on February 7th. Participants will learn foundational folding techniques to create four interlinked, shifting cubes, design customizable patterns, and code their pieces to move in unique rhythms. Please sign up here to secure your spot as space is limited!
This project was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant #2322898. The Arts League and Sung Robotics Lab especially thank Diedra Krieger, Project Manager, for their role in coordinating and executing the residency program. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
—--
Artist Statement for “Dancing through Life”
I’ve often wondered if I’m invisible, or if it’s my identity that’s slipping from view. Perception, for me, is deeply entangled with selfhood, memory, and the tension between how I present myself and how I feel inside. For years, I shaped myself around expectations, until the layers began to rupture.
My work lives in that rupture. Through acts of gathering, assembling, disassembling, and repeating, I explore edges and skins, both physical and emotional, as sites of transformation. Edges become thresholds of friction and decay; skin becomes a metaphor for both concealment and protection. As these surfaces move, shift, peel, and accumulate, what was hidden begins to emerge.
This is a practice of remaking, a process shaped by loss and reclamation. In the wake of a relationship that silenced me, I return to material, gesture, and rhythm as ways to recover what was buried. What may appear ordered is often chaos beneath. What may seem still, is alive with sensation. Through this work, I am learning to see myself again, not just with the eyes, but with the body, the memory, and the materials I trust to speak for me.
Erin Rose Boyle - Bio
Erin Rose Boyle creates sculptures and installations that feature details achieved through her inventive use of uncommon art materials and techniques. She incorporates traditional skills and the act of repetition of recycled materials to assemble serious, yet playful layers. Her new work involves moments of surprise using robotics. She believes that her best work happens when it involves experimentation and play.
Educated at Syracuse University (BFA in Sculpture & Fibers) and the University of the Arts (MFA in Sculpture) she currently works as the Assistant Director of Academic Enrichment Programs and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Erin has exhibited work locally in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York, most recently focusing on an Artist in Residence at SUNG LAB at the University of Pennsylvania where she is learning to integrate origami-inspired robotic technologies into her work.
Sung Robotics Lab
Our group is interested in advancing the state of the art in computational methods for robot design and deployment, with a particular focus on soft and compliant robots. By combining methods in computational geometry with practical engineering design, we develop theory and systems for making robot design and fabrication intuitive and accessible to the non-engineer. We are part of the GRASP Lab at University of Pennsylvania.
The Arts League
The Arts League is the neighborhood hub for arts education in West Philadelphia. Our contemporary art center champions intergenerational learning with a wide array of visual and performing arts programs, classes, workshops and residencies.
