Inspired by our artist in the community, Harold Offeh, we've selected five artists who use performance as part of their practice, featuring: Rhiannon Lowe, Saranjit Birdi, Jacek Ludwig Scarso, Alexa Wright and Steve Dutton
Cekca Het: Trans Panic: "Man, I can’t tell you how relieved I was when you took off your dress, you didn’t have a dick", 2022
"Man, I can’t tell you how relieved I was when you took off your dress, you didn’t have a dick” says Clarence to Alabama in True Romance, as they sit high up, in front of the huge JMC truck billboard. Clarence’s post-sex relief is obvious; less so to most is the passing slap in the face of anyone watching who just might be trans or non-binary. Aw the early ‘90s. I still love and still hate that film. Some things in the world have changed; a great deal hasn’t.
This is a collection of reworked pieces, objects and ephemera from Cekca Het: Trans Panic, my recent exhibitions and performances based around a never-to-make-it noise band project. Cekca Het: Trans Panic celebrates and explores my identity pre-, during and post transition, through a mix of text, installation, moving image, sound, costume and performance. The work collapses my past and present, seeks domestic escape from medical horrors and social fears, considers my wriggles for position within trans spaces and art communities, and takes swipes at transphobic individuals and media.
From Freelands site:
This exhibition brought together the work of 21 artists working across the UK, including artists based in Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh and Sheffield. Sculpture, sound works, textiles, print, written word, film and installation, painting and site-specific interventions were installed throughout Freelands Foundation’s London building, offering an insight into new approaches to making and the most urgent topics being considered by artists today. Interspersed with artworks that invited moments of contemplation, this exhibition encouraged a re-examination of our own positions within contemporary cities and systems.
Artists: Becca + Clare, Brown&Brí, Jane Butler, James Clarkson, Mitch Conlon, Freya Dooley, Rebecca Gould, Maud Haya-Baviera, Jenny Hogarth, Rhiannon Lowe, Victoria Lucas, Jasmin Märker, Will Roberts, Conor Rogers, Sarah Rose, Rae-Yen Song, Eothen Stearn, Neasa Terry, Thomas Wells, Joanna Whittle, Mona Yoo.
'Bombed- A Moonlight Sonata Part II' Dresden, Germany, 2019
'Bombed- A Moonlight Sonata Part II' Dresden, Germany
In June/July 2011, I created the installation work 'Bombed- A Moonlight Sonata', for the Herbert Museum and Gallery, Coventry, UK exploring the WWII Coventry bombing blitz. The exhibition was an extended commission supported by Arts Council of England., developed initially through Coventry Artspace.
I had always wanted to do Part II of the work from the perspective of Dresden. and the German people. I pursued this objective since 2011, obtaining a British Council 'Artist International Development Fund' award in 2017 to visit Dresden and research possibilities.
In October 2019 I completed this ambition. 'Bombed-A Moonlight Sonata II' was commissioned by Societaetstheater in Dresden for their Szene:Europa festival and performed in an ex-munitions, bomb-making factory, Zentralwerk.
Having come full circle, The Herbert have offered me exhibition space in November 2020, the 80th Anniversary of the Coventry Blitz, to present and disseminate the journey of research, work and outcomes of Part I and II to audiences. I am now discussing with the Arts Council to raise funding for the exhibition.
In Limbo, 2018 - 2019
Live art / VR installation at Tate Modern, in collaboration with Anise Gallery and Felix Dodd
A Real Life Drama, 2020
Inspired by the experiences of a young women who has lived through episodes of psychosis, this scripted drama brings together various characters, two from Shakespeare’s King Lear, and a contemporary male figure, all of which exist in the mind of the unnamed Main Character. The work explores a sense of fragmentation and dislocation structurally, as a fractured narrative plays out across two simultaneous projections on a black wall. On a freestanding monitor to the left of the projections a head and shoulders shot of the Main Character intermittently appears, reflecting on her reality. Adding a further dimension to the work, the actress playing the Main Character also reflects on her experience from time to time.
AND Drawings 1,2,3,4, 2017
A Series of Performative Drawings made for AND Gallery, London. UK
Published 23 March 2023
