Selected Performances 2014-2024
Post-performance selfie from 'Judith Butler's Phantasmally They-SMR Shred' on 22 June 2024 at the Alternative Arts Performance Festival at RMBL, Birmingham. I read one of the middle chapters from Judith Butler’s new book ‘Who’s Afraid of Gender’ in a hushed, whispery tone, and at a relaxed pace. I was aiming for that ASMR-type hypnotic effect, and it is always hard to judge what your own voice sounds like to other people, especially when miked up, but I think I achieved my aim. The audience were much more focused than I'd expected, which was lovely.
While reading I was applying layers of powder foundation, eyebrow pencil, eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick, using the open book as a mirror substitute. I used a foundation colour that was closer to my own skin colour than the ones I used in previous versions of the performance, but after just over half an hour of repeated applications it did not look very natural.
In this performance I wanted to address a potentially polarising subject in a soothing, non-confrontational way, and I think that a refusal to get obviously impassioned about something can be harder to argue with, or against. I think that most of what Judith Butler writes is perfectly reasonable, so why wouldn’t I also be reasonable?
The whole event was enormous fun, a great mix of music, art-making and audience participation, so keep an eye out on Instagram for future AAP events (https://www.instagram.com/alternative.arts.performance/)
While reading I was applying layers of powder foundation, eyebrow pencil, eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick, using the open book as a mirror substitute. I used a foundation colour that was closer to my own skin colour than the ones I used in previous versions of the performance, but after just over half an hour of repeated applications it did not look very natural.
In this performance I wanted to address a potentially polarising subject in a soothing, non-confrontational way, and I think that a refusal to get obviously impassioned about something can be harder to argue with, or against. I think that most of what Judith Butler writes is perfectly reasonable, so why wouldn’t I also be reasonable?
The whole event was enormous fun, a great mix of music, art-making and audience participation, so keep an eye out on Instagram for future AAP events (https://www.instagram.com/alternative.arts.performance/)
Action shot from my four-hour durational performance of 'House/Wife' on 8 March 2024. This was a new performance for my exhibition 'BIG'. I wrote the kanji for woman multiple times down the length of a 7-meter sheet of paper, using a string mop instead of a calligraphy brush.
There's more information about the work on the 'BIG' page. (Photograph courtesy of Vicky Roden.)
There's more information about the work on the 'BIG' page. (Photograph courtesy of Vicky Roden.)
Performing 'Kleidungsaffe' for Melati Suryodarmo at Ikon Gallery Birmingham, 27 May 2023 (Photograph courtesy of Melati Suryodarmo)
This work would fit nicely onto the 'Global Bodies' page, dealing as it does with themes of migration, exploitation, fast fashion and the need to assimilate into social culture. The clothes in the 'tree' had been donated to charity, and went back to be reused after the exhibition closed.
This work would fit nicely onto the 'Global Bodies' page, dealing as it does with themes of migration, exploitation, fast fashion and the need to assimilate into social culture. The clothes in the 'tree' had been donated to charity, and went back to be reused after the exhibition closed.
'Chica Caliente Goes Out-Out' was created for Eastside Projects' Summer Camp Performance Platform and performed on 7 October 2022.
I did not document the performance myself - what happens in Digbeth, stays in Digbeth - but there are images floating about on the internet.
I had a one-woman silent disco to the playlist I use in my studio, taking up and reclaiming my space in public after being locked down due to Covid. I was interested in the reactions to me enjoying myself, which were mostly favourable although I did embarrass some younger adults. Would you like it if it was your mother behaving like that? How old is too old to be going out and having a good time? What is appropriate behaviour in an art space, especially when you are obviously not a trained dancer?
The photo shows the archived performance costume (minus shoes). The customised hazmat suit was originally from my Coronavirus Queen of the May performance, and the leotard and tights are like those worn by Madonna in the 'Hung Up' video (2005). I wore the FFP2 mask as I am still clinically vulnerable. The playlist is on Spotify (Chica Caliente Goes Out-Out), I recommend you play it loud on shuffle for best effect.
I did not document the performance myself - what happens in Digbeth, stays in Digbeth - but there are images floating about on the internet.
I had a one-woman silent disco to the playlist I use in my studio, taking up and reclaiming my space in public after being locked down due to Covid. I was interested in the reactions to me enjoying myself, which were mostly favourable although I did embarrass some younger adults. Would you like it if it was your mother behaving like that? How old is too old to be going out and having a good time? What is appropriate behaviour in an art space, especially when you are obviously not a trained dancer?
The photo shows the archived performance costume (minus shoes). The customised hazmat suit was originally from my Coronavirus Queen of the May performance, and the leotard and tights are like those worn by Madonna in the 'Hung Up' video (2005). I wore the FFP2 mask as I am still clinically vulnerable. The playlist is on Spotify (Chica Caliente Goes Out-Out), I recommend you play it loud on shuffle for best effect.
'Coronavirus Queen of the May' was created for 'Depictions of Living 2' (Venice Arsenale, August 2022) from photographs of a performance to camera on 1 May 2020. I was trying to perform the old May Day ritual of washing my face in the morning dew to make myself more beautiful, but the constraints of the first UK coronavirus lockdown made that impossible. My FFP3 mask is threaded through with flowers to make an anti-plague nosegay. I'm wearing as much PPE as I could get hold of. My two photographers maintained the mandated 2m social distance from myself and each other, and recorded the performance independently. I have stitched everything back together, but still there is that disconnect from the real thing. None of it feels real now, but I am still vulnerable.
'Repetition is the Mother of Skill: Repetition is the Skill of Mothers' is a video performance I made in 2018 while awaiting neurosurgery. A combination of vertebral bone spurs and bulging discs meant that I had steadily been losing function in my hands and arms. I had lost the ability to draw 'like myself', and I was having problems with every day tasks like threading a needle. The performance shows me picking pink peppercorns from a glass of water with chopsticks, based on seeing a woman doing exactly that in Wagamama near Tate Modern (long story!). It is a test of manual dexterity and an exercise in futility, and a meditative act. I like to show it on a loop, so that it never ends. I performed a 10 minute live version at Leyden Gallery, London for Desperate Artwives in December 2018, with a 'proper' ending, in case I could never do it again.
'Judith Butler's 50 Minute Shred' started life in 2014 as part of a day-long multi-performance event in The Crossing at Central Saint Martins.
This was also around my peak as a competitive powerlifter, hence the singlet. I combined philosopher Judith Butler's notion of gender as performative with celebrity trainer Jillian Michael's intense fitness workouts to create a routine by which I could become more feminine and more fit at the same time. In the 'rest' intervals between kettlebell exercises I applied various kinds of make-up, looking out at the audience instead of into a mirror. After the performance I spent the rest of the day in the same make-up. This formed the template for various other solo, duo and group versions of Judith Butler's Shred - you can find them all on my Vimeo channel. I have also made physical flick book versions of a short loop of the video ('Judith Butler's Eternal Shred' 2015 & 2019) and you can see those at my studio.
This was also around my peak as a competitive powerlifter, hence the singlet. I combined philosopher Judith Butler's notion of gender as performative with celebrity trainer Jillian Michael's intense fitness workouts to create a routine by which I could become more feminine and more fit at the same time. In the 'rest' intervals between kettlebell exercises I applied various kinds of make-up, looking out at the audience instead of into a mirror. After the performance I spent the rest of the day in the same make-up. This formed the template for various other solo, duo and group versions of Judith Butler's Shred - you can find them all on my Vimeo channel. I have also made physical flick book versions of a short loop of the video ('Judith Butler's Eternal Shred' 2015 & 2019) and you can see those at my studio.