Callaloo Rundown

2007-08-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

After all my good intentions, I haven't writted a single blog all week. So here goes it for the monster recap.

The journey started in Liverpool. I sat apprehensively in a little café having just applied my drag queen make-up. Then came my debut in the Cotton exchange, when I donned my dress properly for the first time.

In the Cotton Exchange we met Albert, the international cotton master, who seemed deeply underwhelmed by my endeavour at first. Three hours later, he was genuinely emotional and we said a teary goodbye over a cup of Yorkshire and a hobnob.

After setting up by the port I was approached by some office workers on their fag break…

"Are you getting married love?"

(in a pretentious voice) " Ha ha NO actually I am travelling along the old cotton trading route from Liverpool to Manchester, making a costume from the donations people give me along the way. Do you have anything you want to add to my frock?"

"Oh aye! Come 'ed… Back in a tick we'll run and grab sommat from upstairs."
(5 mins later)

"Here you go love can you sew this in. It's Terry's appointment card..he passed away last week."

"He was a sound lad Terry yeah."

Moving onto the evening parade. We walked past a seedy looking biker bar and my companion Ricardo the Lionheart goaded me to enter. The woman outside said: "Tell me its for a bet??!!"
"You won't make it out of there in one piece, I tell yuh"

2 hours later I was being serenaded by steve and was adorned with axe necklaces and guitar stickers. And as Buzz burnt a fag out in the palm of his hand, he declared to my right hand documentin' man "mind over matter!", eyeballing him affectionately.

DAY 2
THE canal trip. I piled onto the ship with a few hundred old giffers in tow. Handing me freshly laundered handkerchiefs to stitch and doddering around me constantly. Four hours in and my fake smile was starting to falter, but a few kind ladies taught me how to sew and brian the blue badge guide man was a restless pillar of support.

DAY 3
This morning at Styal mill I became at one with the museum and found myself being treated like a National Trust attraction du jour. On entering the mill one of the workers mistook me for a haunting vision of the past and pissed his pants. Later on some American tourists were deeply disappointed when I failed to deliver a blow by blow account of the Mill's history and only wanted to talk about my own mission. Later on still, I was doing my Timmy Mallet with great success, as the wee scampeteers flocked to expand my gown with their crazy doodles and shit.

CASTLEFIELDS and CANAL st
Hung out for a while, getting seriously mardy with my glamorous documenting assistant. After grumping around for a while I had a snooze under a bridge and dangled me tootsies over the canal for some fake looking pictures to be taken.

Canal St provided the usual plethora of talent. Starting with none other than the mighty Raymondo himself. Who stinking of an over the top Jimmy Saville, crowned me with his goldie lookin chain.
Later on my smile held fast as two scallywags tried to nick my bag and then gifted me with bike locks they'd recently robbed…the little sweeties.
Then a magical Rainbow man caught my eye and I gave chase until he handed over his boa bright.

LAST DAY – in the Rainy city

Sat in Albert Square in the pissing rain of Manchester

and a gaudily coloured

Wedding guest came running up to ask " Is it arrrGHHt???" " Actually (pretentious voice returns) I'm travelling along the blah-dee-blah oikin blah… Gimme yer coat bitch!"

Big ups to Richard Stacey my photographing space monkey and all the lovely lovely public I met along my way. I love you all but won't be doing it again.

2007-08-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

Not posted much on here recently but..alas i have succombed to the myspace ting and set one up for my final proj.

i'm gonna write blogs during my performance on there so you can keep track of me hopefully...check i'm still alive etc if yer can be ersed.

Check: www.myspace.com/manchester_sur_mer

Adieu X

2007-07-23T01:22:00.000-07:00

Exploring deconstructing and transforming images at Glastonbury 2007...many different identities lurking within one person.

3 easy steps from yuppie to glasto muppetry:

Dodgy vid to soon come...

2007-06-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

Backyard Bazaar

I managed to drag my sorry self out of bed early sunday morning, pack me suitcase full of dodgy merch and trug on down to Brick Lane to set up a stall for the day. it was the first time thay had had the market in this particular part of Brick lane so was really very quiet compared to the other markets there.

Harking back to a time when something of the individual was retained in production and when a market stall could reflect the pecularity of the person behind it, i set up my miniature display.

I traded a total of three bags (cheers Ming!) and a piece of gold paper torn off my display. I also managed to swap one bag for 2 pairs of wiKKed earrings!!! This was actually fairly successfull as by 3pm some of us hadn't sold a bean AND I met lots of intriguing market peeps..well worth losing my voice for.

2007-06-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

...oh yes there's more

2007-06-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

This is a tad belated i know, but in response to the feedback i received during the presentation, i have come to realise that i was neglecting the perception and involvement of the spectator in some way by enforcing my own aesthetic, my own gear, my own mess onto them. This was a removal from my original intentions of something which was open to transformation and outside embellishment. Not just my own remnants of time and place being mapped out but rather incorporating the traces and debris of the exchanges along the way. A point of reference has been Sontag's ideas of travel as accumulation.

I am also very conscious of how the work is communicating the theory to the audience. The arguably tentative and patchy explorations of last term led to incoherency and puzzlement. Rather than getting confused in the revelry and mischief, which i nonetheless believe to be an important means of communication, i want the spectator to draw something out and engage with some of the debates informing the work.

2007-06-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Trailer Designs

Below are some designs for a trailer, which i had intended to set up in the car park of Wimbledon college. The set up lies somewhere between a rag and bone cart and a first aid truck. Like a morphing unit, where you go to seek transformation, i would offer a 'tailoring' service on a one to one level. the aim being to revive the dialogue and exchange, which at one time was so very vital between dressmaker and client, whilst using the resources and imagination available to me to create spontaneous, cobbled together images, hopefully reflective of the conversation which has taken place.

i am still not sure if i will use this idea at all this year. For my scratch, i am thinking of turning my focus to the pilgrimage/journey idea.Yess i'm still writing through a fog, but will hopefully draw up a plan of action soon..

2007-05-23T00:36:00.000-07:00

Yellow Pedlar Pics

2007-05-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

Yellow Pedlar Dress

Here are some designs and pictures of a dress i have been making out of yellow sandbags, which i acquired after a spot of drunken skip-raiding. The idea of it is to incorporate function in order to enable autonomy and create a sort of one man band, whilst simultaneously highlighting certain social imbalances. I have been experimenting with the idea of sewing in holdalls for the pedlar to store their knockoff goods in or a cart which is wheeled along within the dress. Other possibilities i may explore are creating tunnels within the dress to allow others to burrow in and have multiple openings in order to facilitate more than one wearer.

The material itself conjures up notions of construction and refuge and links with the idea of building a defense around the body. I am therefore treating clothing as a means of providing the intimacy and protection found in a building. With the performance pictures shown i was trying to thing about the bags as containers which could also double up as a shelter of sorts.

2007-04-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

The link to the pedlar film on youtube is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml55c7d9-hc

2007-04-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Some Bassline Circus Pics

2007-04-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

Stitches that Travel

2007-04-04T02:51:00.000-07:00

Workshop Showing: Pedlar Film

For the second workshop i showed a short film of me selling fake handbags on the streets of London and Manchester. I was wearing a dress made from colourful plastic bags and gaffer tape and the hand bags were versions of designer handbags, but fabricated also from plastic bags, food wrappers, tape etc. Through making these bags i have become wrapped up in the character of the street pedlar and the spaces which he/she inhabits. It is these junctures such as ports, coastal towns, the egalitarian space of the beach, which interest me, as i have been thinking about washed up cultural detritus, (whether objects or people) and the process of piecing together of disparate fragments, resulting in the creation of new cultural meanings.

The feedback from the rest of the group was positive and some of the things that arose were the idea of trade, which although i had not originally given much attention to, i think is pertinent to my research, particularly if i set up the market stall. People also mentioned as interesting: the relationships i had formed on the street, the contradictory nature of the costume itself being at once rubbishy, yet something almost regal/graceful about it as it allowed me to glide around the streets and Magda reminded me to return to Bakhtin, as she claimed there to be something carnivalesque about the whole thing.

Below are some fuzzy stills taken from the film...

2007-04-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

2007-04-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

2007-04-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Back in the MCR...

2007-04-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

Trinity Buoy Wharf

2007-04-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

Aaaah Trinity Buoy Wharf (MA Interim Show)...provider of damp, Friday night beer, geriatric stoners...not forgetting the quite unusual experience of Fat Boys diner. Oh how i shall miss you. No really i will.I'm glad i decided to get involved, even if purely as a lesson in curating an exhibition as a whole.It proved interesting.

Some pics..

2007-03-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

First drafts...

2007-02-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

OOH LA LA

I enjoyed the creations produced in my workshop on Thursday, so thank-you to those who got involved. It was quite bizaare seeing pieces of me on someone else's body.I kept wanting to intervene and say no, no you wear it like this or , why don't you use this. This notion of ownership is part of what i wanted to investigate and i think it was quite frustrating when different artists were given the opportunity to altar the 'semi-cooked meat' in their own individual ways.

For the next workshop i definitely intend to get involved more and think less about entertaining the group. However i am interested in the audience as performer. Tania reminded me of an artist, whose exhibition she saw in Brazil. I think its Peter Friedl (is that who you meant?), who places animal costumes in the gallery space as an invitation to the audience to use them. The audience therefore becomes the exhibition.

Judging by the feedback, i think the danger is the work can become almost too rich and varied, that it loses all focus. there's always been confusion and a lot going on in what i make, mixing up pattern and colour, but how do i bring these these multiple, incoherent strands together? ..or do i just think sod it and accept it as my style.

2007-02-26T07:38:00.000-08:00

Workshop Photos

2007-02-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

Frill-seeking

I suddenly found out last week, that me mate yani was returning to Sierra leone (she's working for an NGO there). Suspecting that the post might be a bit slow getting there, i ripped a scrap of fabric off the nearest cow and made her a few stitches . I don't want the pieces to be finished pieces, more like blank canvases, open to transformation and outside embellishment. I'm really hoping they will end up completely out of control, but who's to say. I asked yani to keep the piece with her for a couple of weeks before she passes it on and sew, weave, attach, glue, stain anything she wants into the piece. It almost becomes like creating the ultimate souvenir without leaving my armchair. When i receive it back, maybe i will transform it into something completely different, like a bench or a set of Louis Vuitton luggage.

2007-02-26T06:41:00.000-08:00

TRAVELLING SCHMUCK

just been reminded of the german word 'schmuck', which i think has re-entered my top 3 fave german words (the first being 'schnupfen', meaning a runny nose). it means jewellry, junk, decoration-like crap. when i lived in germany people would comment on how much i liked me schmuck!!

Here are some pics of my housemate and her piece, which was a rush job i'm afraid.she left about 3 weeks ago, but i've been a bit slack on the old blog y'see. i customised an old shirt with a mandarin collar, using applique techniques and monoprinting images of a little Buddha, which i tea-leaved out of a book on Buddhism (funnily enough). I wanted to use inappropriate religious imagery mixed with safariesque Africana especially for her because, even though i only lived with her for 3 weeks, she sparked off lots of conversations about religion between me and my friends. not wanting to comment too much, lets just say some of her views were a little bit..uh.. FUCKING PURITANICAL..only jesting, Liesel, me ole mucker if you're reading. Anyway, hopefully the piece will be sending me postcards like those travelling gnomes (Amelie). Wotchout for the cheesy grin!

2007-02-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

Just thinking about the manifesto..i reckon that the key thing, above all, is to not take ourselves too seriously...

2007-02-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

Bassline Circus

Yesterday i spent the day at Circus Space (swanky circus school)in Hoxton, watching the Bassline Circus rehearse. I'm going to be helping do the costumes for their summer show, which will tour throughout England and Scotland. Will remind yers to check 'em out nearer the time, but they defo gonna be at Stokefest and Glastonbury.

They're still in the early, tricky stages of devising the show, so was interesting to observe the strained negotiations and some interesting internal politics. They brought in the famous 'Archaos' director Pierrot Bidon (Archaos were French Circus madheads who juggled chainsaws in the 80s), who listened to all their ideas for the show, told them all to bugger off and leave him with 3 bottles of red wine until he emerged with the masterpiece. bleedin' eccentrics eh! Was defo an interesting insight and spoke lotsa franglais.

more infos about the group at: basslinecircus.org

2007-02-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

Research Proposal as it stood December 2006

Performing Layers of the Self: How does the metropole provide a space in which essentialist constructs of identity are policed, transgressed and ultimately transcended?

“In the world through which I travel I am endlessly creating myself.” (Fanon, cited in Read, 1996: 134 )

At a time when national identities are fading into insignificance and ethnic identities are being asserted violently within Europe’s borders, the postcolonial cities of the world constitute spaces of cosmopolitanism, where different cultures and ethnicities rub shoulders and interact. The perpetual influx of migrants infuses cities, such as London or Paris, with a cultural vibrancy and pluralism, thus transforming established notions of location, identity and culture. Symptomatic of modernity, in this poststructuralist condition we find ourselves locked into an endless process of reconstruction and reinvention of the self. The research that I propose to undertake concerns the performativity of these hybridised identities, in particular through the use of costume, in the mundane realm of the everyday metropolitan space. How we perform our metamorphosing selves and how, as Judith Butler (1990) describes, the enacting of identities, in fact, brings those identities into being.

In order to further comprehend post-essentialist concepts of selfhood, it seems necessary first of all to reflect upon and interrogate a homogenising notion of identity underlying liberalism. In ‘Peau Noire, Masques Blancs’ (1956), Fanon demonstrates the power of the racial binary to fix, which found the colonised imprisoned into ‘a crushing objecthood.’ I am particularly interested in the influence of the French mission civilisatrice on contemporary Caribbean society. This colonial project reduced the black subject to an empty vessel, in need of civilisation and a masque blanc. Through this process of internalisation of Western values and French culture, we are forced to question to what extent the Other is rendered complicit in their own situation? Reflecting on my own experiences living on the island of Martinique, I intend to address the existence of a split identity crisis, which still persists in the French Caribbean region today. My focus turns inevitably to an examination of the ‘enlightened’ Caribbean evolués, returning to the island after being formally educated in the metropole and a condition which is, nowadays more commonly referred to as the ‘oreo cookie syndrome.’

Such complex performances of crossing, overlapping identities will be crucial in shaping both my research and practice. Homi Bhabha’s writing on mimesis and the fluidity of binary systems of power is of particular relevance to my practice, which will comment on the ease of which one can currently adopt, impersonate and reshape required identities from the comfort of one’s own home. Trapped by the contradictory nature of globalisation, the modern citizen is implicated in a form of ‘corporate multiculturalism’. I am particularly concerned with how cultural values are espoused and reappropriated in this transnational age, not only interrogating the aforementioned psychological condition of donning a masque blanc but also the cultural relevancy of adopting a masque noir.

Historically, this instability of difference relates to white blackface minstrel performances of the nineteenth century. However, in our globalised present such border-crossings are far more nuanced and complex. In the urban hubs of cities such as Paris, for example, a new generation of white ‘apocalyptic youth’ are on the hunt for renewed spirituality. These neo-tribal groups engage in what Gómez-Peña refers to as ‘post-industrial pow wows’, which he goes on to describe as “crosscultural performance rituals inspired by ‘ancient rites’ – collective drumming, aficionado performance art and pop ‘anarchist’ politics.” (2005:62) Within this crossover culture, notions of what we perceive to be ‘local’ and ‘global’ are disturbed and markers of cultural difference become softened and blurred.

This stylized hybridity appears in stark contrast to the reality of hybrid postcolonial subjects. Today, in the wake of 9/11, the rhetoric of cultural tolerance is visibly breaking down. As state policy shifts from the celebration of difference to an anxious call for assimilation, the racial Other (whether citizen or immigrant) is under renewed pressure to integrate him/herself into society. Are we thus regressing, returning to the domain of old colonial binaries? Considering the current crisis of multiculturalism, ‘new imperialism’ and the rise of the French right, I intend to examine the way in which borders are constructed, negotiated and transcended within the metropolitan space. Focusing on last year’s social unrest in the banlieues of Paris, the final part of my research will look at the reconstruction and reinvention of the self in the midst of disintegrating projects of multiculturalism.

Cultural theorists, Paul Gilroy (1993) and Stuart Hall (1992), argue the importance of music, performance, movement and the inscription of bodies through dress and style as ‘sites of pleasure’ and identity formation in the black diaspora. With this in mind I shall endeavour to explore further the performativity of such ‘sites of pleasure’. Whilst acknowledging the multiple and contradictory forces at work within the fashion system, I plan to focus on the cultural signifiers of dress which are endlessly being problematised, reinscribed and transcended in the creation of truly modern subjects. How vestimentary codes are adopted and refashioned, simultaneously emphasising the social and historical peculiarity of the construction of identity and the constant debate between cultural plurality and a fixed, rooted sense of self. The course of my argument seems to repeat itself as the relevance of Fanon once more becomes apparent in the present day. According to Fanon, both blacks and whites must deal with the psychic trauma of everyday exchanges. A dynamic which is still very much relevant today and an experience Isaac Julien describes as ‘the violence of everyday life’.

Within the context of the banlieues, I am interested in the creative recombining and reconfiguration of costume and gesture in identity performances and how these forces might potentially constitute a means of resistance and transformation. How the way we dress, the music we choose to accompany our daily rituals and our creations of street vernacular contribute to the staging of our hybrid personae and in the case of the banlieues become oppositional strategies. It is precisely these “neglected modes of signifying practices like mimesis, gesture, kinesis and costume”, to which Gilroy refers ( 2004:137), that will inform my own practice. In consideration of the research I have outlined above, I thus far anticipate the project to be an excavation of complex subject formations and an ethnographic investigation into the perpetual performance of multiple, overlapping identities, in which we are all involved.

2007-02-06T01:49:00.000-08:00

The Research

Loosely thinking about:

Translations/Mistranslations of culture
Cultural appropriation
Processes of creolization/hybridity..also as means of resistance
Ritual and revolutionary force

Last year i was researching Haitian Vodou for a project and dissertation at college. I was looking more at misrepresentations of Vodou in Western culture. Therefore it was more about 'VOODOO'...the anxieties invoked around this particular cultural phenomena. Voodoo as a construct, in order to portray blackness or rather the black man, in particular the Haitian as savage and uncivilised. Something quite separate from authentic Haitian Vodou.

In this year's research i plan to return to Haiti, however i'm now considering cultural appropriation and invention within Vodou altar assemblge. How these disparate fragments can become tools of resistance through the dynamics of transformation and bricolage. How everyday objects and materials are taken and invested with new lives and meanings. A process of translation from the mundane into the extraordinary, this piecing together results in a whole, which remains uniquely Haitian.

I've been interested in the appropriation of images and icons from Catholicism in Vodou for a while now. Coming from an Irish Catholic background, i was always fascinated by the gold altar objects and decadent ornamentation and i like going into churches, even if i don't agree with everything they're saying, i find the smell, the decoration and the small rituals quite comforting. I've also been looking into the myth of Bois Caimen in Haiti, which is the Vodou ceremony that supposedly sparked off the slave revolution, resulting in the country's independance in 1804. The idea of gatherings and ritual as a catalyst for revolution.

The Garms

As regards my practice, i want to veer away from costume as a solitary pursuit and ensure the pieces involve the spectator, blurring the divide between artist/viewer performer/spectator etc. Through the possibility of altaring someone else's creation, i am thinking about rules of authorship and how to question them.

Currently i'm working on a small piece for my South African housemate, who is travelling home through Africa and leaves on MONDAY..AARRRGH!! yep gotta get me skates on. Have not tried anything too ambitious, due to time constraints but also because i'm interested not only in how the piece affects the environment but also how the environment affects and creates the piece..transformation through mobility. Will talk more about this soon, but planning on creating some kind of travelblog for the garment (and its wearer) to keep me posted as to it's antics.

2006-12-23T06:09:00.000-08:00

Talking Turkeys!

Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos' turkeys just wanna hav fun
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked
An every turkey has a Mum.
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,
Don't eat it, keep it alive,
It could be yu mate, an not on your plate
Say, Yo! Turkey I'm on your side.
I got lots of friends who are turkeys
An all of dem fear christmas time,
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it
An humans are out of dere mind,
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys
Dey all hav a right to a life,
Not to be caged up an genetically made up
By any farmer an his wife.

Turkeys just wanna play reggae
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying,
ÒI cannot wait for de chopÓ,
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain
In many ways like yu an me.

I once knew a turkey called........ Turkey
He said "Benji explain to me please,
Who put de turkey in christmas
An what happens to christmas trees?",
I said "I am not too sure turkey
But itÕs nothing to do wid Christ Mass
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be
An business men mek loadsa cash'.

Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake
In a plate of organic grown beans,
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
An spare dem de cut of de knife,
Join Turkeys United an dey'll be delighted
An yu will mek new friends 'FOR LIFE'.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Have yerselves a merry little Christmas XXX

2006-11-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

Hola..

okay so you probably already heard me harpsing on but just need to say one last time how fantastic Moscow Academy's'Sir Vantes Donkey Knot' was on saturday night. Everything i could have hoped for: multiple person costumes; hilarity with shadows; dancing with giants; creating the theatre set while we watched; transformable costumes, remote control rats;dresses which take up the whole stage. Wonky lovely theatre performed by 20 year old theatre-makers like us lot!! aahh magnifique!

Anyways enough dribble..

oh yeah we got free vodka after the performance..nuff said

2006-11-21T12:12:00.000-08:00

Some Beginnings...

2006-11-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

I had the dreaded Cross course crit yesterday.I hate the way those words sound together.It sounds like some kind of disease..must be the word crit,critter,cretin.not nice.Anyway it was certainly an interesting experience, even if i was the last presentation on a friday afternoon(most people had lost the will to live by this point). Anyway i finished 'em off! Highlights included Kate Davis calling me a hybrid (well in so many words)and me admitting to talking utter b*ll*$ks (in those exact words.)Pretty damn successful then.

I showed a clip of Jennie Livingston's 'Paris is Burning' (1991) as i'd been thinking about visibility/invisibility in my own work and how we can question the stability of binaries.Also i've been interested in Livingston's position in the film, how we experience her presence or lack of presence, as a white middle-class female director,on watching the film.The idea of the costume piece i had begun, which i showed in the presentation, was to create an ambiguous, intranslatable body. A body, which inhabits an inbetween space between notions of beauty and ugliness.An identity or model, which cannot be pinned down or immediately fixed from the outside.Although i was aware of the problems this would pose in the work, i'm glad i talked about this in the crit, because everyone's reactions really confirmed my suspicions and i suppose it's all part of the whittling down process. So i would say the experience has been useful, as a stepping stone, a transitory stage,even if it seemed a little too early to be talking about my work critically.

2006-11-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

As you can tell i'm still getting to grips with this bloggin malarkey, as you can see with the false start below...These photos were taken on the photography induction i took part in today. They are of the jacket with the long-reaching arms which has been in my studio space. Its a little bit surreal, a little bit Magritte...I'm really sick of seeing it in the space however i need something to clothe my dummy in until i get doing some making!!!

2006-11-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

2006-11-06T09:10:00.000-08:00