BEIJA FLO Physicality and form have been at the forefront of Beija Flo’s experimental artistry, boldly laid bare in her fervent songwriting and zealous live showcases. Cath Holland learns more about the subtle contours of her being. 16
30 minutes into interviewing BEIJA FLO, I know more intimacies about her than women I’ve known all my adult life. We’re in a slightly different scenario than a naturally developing friendship gradually built; every word and pause is recorded, as we talk in a Liverpool city centre bar in late afternoon. But my point still stands: Beija likes to share. I first heard of Beija via a review of one of her shows. The writer wrote at length about the singer, poet and artist’s medical history, namely her diagnosis of MRKH syndrome – more of that later. In the accompanying photographs she looked witchy, wild and sexy, in fishnets and leotard with everywhere hair and much drama. Seeing her perform myself, I witnessed a minimalist yet theatrical performance – she and a laptop, but on a stage decorated like a burlesque club in Berlin. Most of all, she was a woman comfortable in her own skin. Weeks later, a nervous daytime show at Birkenhead Library away from her usual crowd showed the vulnerability of a fledgling artist. I’ve since learnt a lot more about Beija Flo the artist: she’s a life model, standing and reclining naked in front of complete strangers for a living. On one hand we have Beija the bold siren, with a microphone and great one line put-downs. And on the other, a young woman still trying to find her place. Beija’s MRKH syndrome means she has no womb or sexual organs. She talks frankly about that and her poor health at her gigs and in interviews, via social media, wherever she can. I sure as hell didn’t know what it was the first time, so I Googled madly for information on the subject. It’d be rude not to. “I’m an enigma to the NHS,” she tells me of it, and her seven-year experience with the cyclical vomiting syndrome which leads to constant nausea and daily bouts of being sick. “The amount of time I’ve been in [hospital], it’s like, ‘Do you mind just talking to a team of junior doctors, because you know way more than we do’.” So yes, we think we know all about Beija Flo. How wrong we can be? We’re to learn a heck of a lot more, revealed in a forthcoming exhibition at Output Gallery incorporating her different creative strands. Somewhat tellingly, the collection of drawings, poems – she cites eccentric oddballs like Viv Stanshall and Ivor Cutler as influences – and photographic selfportraits, is called Nudes, along with the recent single of the same name. This is the sharing of her most secret self and experiences yet, an insight into an 18-month period some time ago when she suffered a series of scarring events. “I gave trust to the wrong people and received scars in return,” says the press release. “Over this period I was with a very abusive partner emotionally and slightly physically,” she explains quickly. “Sort of had a lot of sex when I didn’t really want to.” Er, having sex you don’t want is much more than ‘slight’ abuse. It’s the real deal. Abuse is abuse. “Yes. No, not slightly, really.” She smiles, sadly… In the song Nudes, with its bleak narrative and static electronic musical bed, she sings of the relationship: “I’ve been the fool…” But any blame needs to be firmly on the abuser’s shoulders. “Yes. Yeh… I was with someone who wasn’t very good for me. And left me feeling very small and very angry. But also very un-listened to and very insignificant.” Abusive relationships have emotional and physical effects and this exhibition is about your relationship with your body. I’m guessing this experience had an effect on your body, and how you viewed it? “After that, sex really wasn’t fun anymore for a while, quite a while. And it affected me with later partners. Maybe half a year after being with him, I met this really wonderful girl and I know that I was very challenging to be in a relationship with. It was more to do with what I’d been left with. [I] didn’t want to be hurt or revisit emotions.” The issue of body confidence is part of the exhibition as well, I take it? “The exhibition is an insight into the journey I’ve been on with my own body; the good bits and the bad bits. I still have days where I’m, like, ‘I hate this’. Sometimes if I eat a really big meal I get a bit bloated and I hate that because my biggest, biggest nightmare is, and I know it’s silly, but, erm, I get very insecure someone might think that I’m pregnant. Because I can never ever be pregnant.” And that upsets you? “It’s a really, really big concern. My weight has always been up and down I have some days where I put on a bit of weight and I feel really good about where all of that weight is.” As long as it’s evenly distributed? “Yeh! It’s not like I’ve ever stood naked in front of anyone and they’ve gone, ‘Oh, no, you’ve had too much ice cream, put your T-shirt back on’. No one’s ever said that and I think I almost have a few little tricks I use on myself to make myself feel good about my body.” The photos in the exhibition were taken during her ‘lost weekend’ that lasted four or five months after the bad relationship ended. She won’t reveal when this took place “because people can’t figure out how old Beija is. All I can tell you it happened in a window on Bold Street”. And which window is that? I ask. “Can’t tell you.” But she can tell me it was warm, so when indoors she was naked much of the time, purposely isolating herself. “I remember having a lot of fun but also feeling very lonely. But almost being grateful for the loneliness, ’cos it meant I really discovered my body. I took lots of walks and did lots of drawing and wrote lots and spent a lot of time with myself. “That man I was with, the horrible one, was quite abusive. Abusive,” she corrects herself. “I lost a lot of myself in that experience and I’m still gaining that back. Or maybe I will never quite get her back.” The eventual need to be with people led her to go on a series of dates, but again with men who took advantage of her vulnerable state. “I don’t fully remember all of it. It was a very dark period of time where I look back and I think, ‘Who was that woman in my body?’ I did not like her.” She thinks it happened because she feels more ‘normal’ when she’s in a relationship with “someone not totally emotionally understanding or won’t just hear ‘I don’t have a vagina’ and… [will] let you explain how you can have a normal… a great sex life. “That’s when I feel the most confident in my body and my issues because, even though I’m very confident about my MRKH syndrome, and know that if any future partner would have an issue with the syndrome that they’re in the wrong, not me. “I’m intrigued by sex and how people do it,” she continues. “I’ve always, always been interested in what other people are doing in sex and I remember being in the earlier stage in my life when sex was a lot more blurry and I didn’t really know what it was. When I first started discovering my body I was ahead of the other girls, really. I was with the boys in terms of experimenting with masturbation.” It’s not that teenage girls don’t masturbate, I don’t think. It’s more that it’s taboo. They don’t talk about it. She nods. “I remember asking boys how it felt and how do you do it and I was very intrigued. It wasn’t in a sense of let me see it or anything, I was very interested in how other people saw their bodies.” Beija and I meet again a couple of weeks later, in the same place on the same sofa, but this time I ask her to bring some of the photos from “I have always aimed to never lose the confidence and the innocence and the freedom of being a child” FEATURE 17
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