[artist/producer]
F U T U R E R I T U A L is a performance platform for radical queer artists + audiences interested in ritual, myth, magick + mysticism to come together, to resist marginalisation, to challenge decency, to protest, to process, to dream us forward.
FRIDAY 5 OCTOBER || HACKNEY SHOWROOM || 7pm || Tickets: £8: Book now
I really rarely get to perform in London and now I’m performing in London (revisiting Fragment) so COME.
Tempting Failure is back in a bigger, riskier, way-more-exciting biennial format.
For 2018 we are heading to Croydon for 2 weeks packed full of durational/extreme/bloody/beautiful/intimate/fun/queer/caring/noisy/feminist performance art.
We’ve just gone live with ticket sales, so here over to the Tempting Failure site to see the full programme.
My portfolio on here was in desperate need of updating and editing, so I took the opportunity to redesign the whole site. The brand new look comes with brand new galleries – including documentation of my last work, Fragment, at UNFIX ReBirth! in Glasgow.
Union with Philip Bedwell
Ghosts, Submerge Festival, Bristol
3pm – 6pm
Tickets and further info
Performing alongside Rrose and Olivier de Sagazan, this is going to be special. Really honoured to be performing Union again in Bristol too.
Fragment (New work)
UNFIX Festival, CCA, Glasgow
12noon
Tickets and further info
Debut of a new piece – Fragment.
A room filled with shards of broken glass – clear, sharp, crystalline.
A body shedding something/seeking something – endurance, risk, control. No fairy tale, no crystal coffin.
Personal apocalypse. Potential rebirth.
I will be performing this new durational work at Buzzcut 2016 in Glasgow. The festival runs from 6-10 April and takes place at the Pearce Institute, Govan.
“Kintsukuroi (Japanese: golden repair) is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. […] As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.â€
Working with gold leaf and exploring the story of scars marking my body. Honouring and armouring these healed wounds.
THUR 7 APRIL, 7pm – 10pm
I’ve been too quiet on here for too long, it’s been something of a hibernation – processing, planning, moving, re-adjusting – and now I feel like I’m getting back on track, so here’s some updates on some things:
Work
+ Last year I contributed to Thomas John Bacon’s piece ‘PERCEPTION:Lab’ which was performed this summer in Boston. I, along with 12 other artists, gave Thomas a sealed envelope containing an action that he would perform for an hour. Each action ‘was designed to stimulate the potential for failure through impossibility or risk’ and on 20 June Thomas opened each envelope in turn and perform it’s action, in an intense piece that lasted 13 hours. Find out more on Thomas John Bacon’s website. My contribution was Action 12.
+ After performing at Tempting Failure festival in each year it has run, I am very excited to say that this year I have joined the team as an Associate Producer and am looking forward to being able to share more news about Tempting Failure soon. For now check out the new website and like us on Facebook.
Union –  with Philip Bedwell.
FRI 20 MARCH – 3.45pm
The Mary Barbour, Pearce Institute. //BUZZCUT// festival
We cease to be connected physically but now joined through the shared ritual and our mirror image bleeding bodies. We both carry our lives marked in and on our bodies. Scars, tattoos, injuries have inscribed us with our stories and our passions. It’s natural for us to mark our marriage in a similarly physical way, and although we are joined, legally and romantically, we continue to be separate, individual and independent.
Work
+ Images from my piece ‘She was the Universe’ performed at SPILL Festival of Performance 2014Â are now online!
+Â I’ll be at //BUZZCUT// 2015 in Glasgow from 18 – 22 March, performing Union alongside Philip Bedwell. It’s my first time at //BUZZCUT// and I’m looking forward to it.
Watch
+ Marco Brambilla, Sync. I watched part of this in the Destricted collection of explicit art films. Montages of found footage – Sex, violence and voyeurism.
Reading
Various longreads I’ve loved this month
+ Alexander McQueen: Into the light, a beautiful look at the designer and his work.
+ I don’t care much for Taylor Swift but this piece on her belly button (of all things) talks about an interesting  ‘female navel taboo’ which I was not previously aware of.
+ Tanning, Training and Branding with the Bikini Bodybuilding Stars of Instagram
+ The Invisible Woman: A conversation with Bjork covers sexism, creativity, her new album.
Work
+ The end of last year was very busy with showing work and completing applications so my site has been a bit more neglected than I would have liked. Still, it does mean that there’s plenty to update over the next few months.
+Â I’ve just uploaded images from Union at Tempting Failure. Very proud of this performance and the resulting documentation.
Reading
A few favorite art-reads from the last few months.
+ The touch and the cut – an annotated dialogue with Kira O’Reilly by Patrick Duggan
+ Trial by fire – How extreme rituals forge intense social bonds.
+ Raising the Skirt by Nicola Canavan
Happy new year!
Union – in collaboration with Philip Bedwell.
We cease to be connected physically but now joined through the shared ritual and our mirror image bleeding bodies. We both carry our lives marked in and on our bodies. Scars, tattoos, injuries have inscribed us with our stories and our passions. It’s natural for us to mark our marriage in a similarly physical way, and although we are joined, legally and romantically, we continue to be separate, individual and independent.
Philip and I are returning to Tempting Failure this year, this time working together. Once again the line up is fantastic and the venue is an amazing, unique space.
For 2014 Tempting Failure are running a week of free events and workshops ahead of the nights of performance on the 7th-8th November. Well worth checking out the full programme.
FRI 7 NOV – 6.30pm
The Island, Bristol. Buy your tickets here.