performance texts [ 2017

performance texts

[ 2017 - 2024 ]

joshua woolford

performance texts

[ 2017 - 2024 ]

Thank you VIRTUA

(aka Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley)

for the invitation to be a part of your library.

I’ve compiled texts which were written for both

live performances and video pieces over the

years, giving them tangible form for the first time.

Words change if spoken, recorded or printed.

I’ve kept the texts as they were used at the time

rather than re-editing them. Almost all of these

texts were acompanyied by soundscapes, many

of which (or excerpts from the performances

themselves) can be found online.

www.joshwoolford.co.uk

joshua woolford

[ 1 ]

artist bio

Joshua Woolford is a transdisciplinary artist working across

performance, sound, video, and installation. Joshua’s work is grounded

in cultural research and their personal experiences of being a member

of the queer Black Afro-Caribbean diaspora living in England.

Through their practice, Joshua acknowledges and confronts

experiences of violence, aggression, and misalignment through

installation, sound, language and their body. They embrace reflection,

transition and movement as powerful and disruptive states which

provoke critical dialogues.

Within their work they actively challenge prevailing narratives and

question our position within the wider socio political landscape

by centering embodied knowledge and intuition above systematic

reasoning.

Often I’m coming back to the question ‘how does it feel?’.

Through my practice I am ultimately forging a deeper

understanding of my own identity and my hopes for the

future.

Woolford graduated with an MA from the Royal College of Art

(Contemporary Art Practice) and Cum Laude from the Design Academy

Eindhoven (Media and Culture). They were the 2023-24 Interpretation

Artist in Residence at Tate and a New Contemporaries 2023 Artist. In

2024 Joshua was the recipient of an Arts Council DYCP grant, and the

a-n Artists Bursary.

Notable exhibitions include live performances at the Van Abbemuseum

in Eindhoven, as and exhibitions and performances at various

institutions across London, such as HOME by Ronan Mckenzie,

Somerset House, Black Cultural Archives, the V&A, Gucci flagship

store, Camden Art Centre and Tate Britain.

In addition to their artistic practice, Joshua lectures at both UAL

(London College of Communication) and the Royal College of Art

(School of Architecture) and takes on design commissions.

[ p. 6 ]

[ p. 8 ]

[ p. 16 ]

[ p. 42 ]

[ p. 46 ]

[ p. 52 ]

[ p. 56]

[ 2024 ]

Ma Ha Wisu ( live performance

collaboration with Nkisi )

dancing with the devil / a

symphony of organs

scattered over the

floor ( live performance )

New Dialogues with Sound

( tate residency sound pieces )

peacefully if we can,

forcibly if we must

[ 2023 ]

( video )

Descent into Tumult

( live performance )

this body which is you. i.

all of us. completely.


a bond through lifetimes


list of works

[ 3 ]

[ p. 60 ]

[ p. 68 ]

[ p. 74 ]

[ p. 80 ]

performance texts 2017 - 2024

Looking at Shostakovich

Quartet No. 15 opus

144 by Aubrey

Williams


the 5 portals ( live performance

[2022 ]

So terribly far to go


live performance )

Molten Form: Assumed

Identity I ( video )

[ p. 88 ]

[ p. 92 ]

[ p. 94 ]

[ 2020 ]

what do you see (when i

feel what i feel)? ( written

for BLK MOVEMENT video )

Patois ( video )

[ 2017 ]

PRIMAL BETRAYAL

( video )

list of works

[ p. 82 ]

[ p. 86 ]

[2021 ]

what do you see (you see

this brave face) ?

[ 4 ]


What happens over that

edge? ( written piece for

Letter To My Little Queer Self )

[ p. 96 ]

REFERENCES &

INSPIRATION

[ 5 ]


Ma Ha Wisu ( live performance

collaboration with Nkisi )

Following loose threads, in the dark.

In a constant state of becoming,

I no longer

recognise

myself.

Masked yet

familiar

Tell me, what

do you feel,

this time?

What do you

feel?

[ Listen ]

On the edge of

disappearance

The dead are

alive

[ I hear you now ]

Finding home

on shifting

sands

In a city of inner discordances

and sonic distortions

What will become of this place?

Something around us begins to

vibrate, vibrating so much that we

disappear.

Transported to

another time in

nothing but each

others sweet

company.

We have arrived-

We are home

Free from

oppression,

apartheid and

genocide.

Here we’re equal.

Cosmic vibrations.

Complete

harmony.

I remember

thinking..

As even that, as

all absolutes must,

began its dissolve…

Weighing heavy I carry you

Across oceans,

And lifetimes.

( Repeat x3 )

Photos by Anne Tetzlaff

Performed at Somerset House (Assembly), March 2024

text from five minute solo within 30 minute piece, accompanied by

movement, melodic electronic sound, distortion and a heavy beat.

[ 7 ]


dancing with the devil / a

symphony of organs

scattered over the

floor ( live performance )

Chapter 2 - tree and light - rib story

Sound:

05:15 introduce cracking of wood (bones)

05:30 Interacting with branch

06:00 reading rib story + continue interacting with the rib

05:00 – 08:00

Spawned from a rib, born to chaos

If cages were then what they are now,

Then. Long live the revolution.

This cage,

Extruding out and away from the spine,

Hollowing out a space between flesh and bone.

Cavernous. Yet totally filled.

Inside this cage my heart hangs heavy. So fucking heavy it

hurts.

Beating, steady. Steady.

Steadily beating.

There’s a type of frog that, when feeling threatened,

will break its own bones and fashion them into knives.

Protecting itself in absolute desperation.

Violence inflicting suffering on both aggressor and

aggressed.

For only a person who has succeeded in dehumanising

themself is able to dehumanise others.

[ Photos 8 ] by Sam Nightingale

[ 9 ]

[ Photo 10 ] by Sam Nightingale

[ 11 ]


Dancing with the devil...

Chapter 3 - earth: Interacting with sand / lungs

Sound:

12:00 pouring sand on drum

12:30 reading lung story + loop coughing

13:00 coughing is looped as I move around wearing lungs

14:45 pour remaining sand on drum

Lungs filled deep,

skin stretched tight

*cought cough*

12:00 – 15:00

Lungs filled deep,


*cought cough*

No air,

Just sand, dust and stones.

[ Cough Cough ]

No air,


[ Cough Cough ]

Lungs filled deep,


*cought cough*

No air,


[ Cough Cough ]

Lungs filled deep,


*cought cough*

No air,


[ Cough Cough ]

Lungs filled deep,


*cought cough*

No air,


[ Cough Cough ]

Lungs filled deep,


*cought cough*

No air,


[ Cough Cough ]

[ Photo 12 ] by Sam Nightingale

[ 13 ]


Dancing with the devil...

20:00 – 23:00 If I pulled out my heart,

Scabs and scars.

Those physical, visible alterations in matter

which occur following an interaction that was

harsher than the barrier could bare.

That final frontier - between the soul, organs,

blood and mass; and the outside world.

The barrier which, once broken, temporarily

exposes those internal elements.

Those internal elements which proceed to

fuse, to re-form the relatively impenetrable

boundary.

Day after day I am broken down and pulled

apart.

A symphony of organs scattered over the

floor.

Would that be enough, would that be enough

for you?

If I pulled out my heart, would that be enough?

Would that be enough? I’m

[ loop ]

Each day I’m gathering myself up, reforming

my fractured self. Stumbling around the city,

either hyper-aware or intensely numb.

From my experiences, shared experiences,

experiences totally different than my own…

News isn’t just news, it’s peoples lives.

We’re witnessing the utter destruction

of entire environments, landscapes and

populations.

Free Palestine.

Free Congo.

Well that’s what you want, isn’t it?

It must be. What more can I do?

[ loop ]

Photo by Sam Nightingale

Free all those oppressed and suffering under

Western imperial projects and colonial rule.

Performed at Camden Art Centre

(New Contemporaries Live), January 2024

twenty-five minute live performance with evolving

[ 14 ] acoustic and digital soundscape.

[ 15 ]

New Dialogues with Sound:


Mona Hatoum

Present Tense, 1996

“The regime that emerged from the 1993 Oslo Accords

had the effect of denying Palestinian self-determination,

while allowing the expansion of colonial settlement and

occupation. The occupation is far more entrenched today

than when we went to Madrid in 1991. Settlements have

expanded… The settler population has tripled during

the so-called peace process. This ‘peace’ process in

effect constituted another phase in the American-

Israeli campaign against the Palestinians, its primary aim

continuing to this day is to bring the Palestinians to accept

their defeat in the long war that has been waged against

them since 1917.”

- Rashid Khalidi The Hundred Year War in

Palestine SOAS University of London

“Distance carries in its essence so many things, and the

question is, is distance measured by kilometres, imposing

apartness and determining longing, the greater the

distance the greater the pain.. And less if the distance is

shorter?

“Israel and the United States divided and subdivided everdiminishing

bits of Palestinian territories into smaller and

less viable units for the unfortunate Palestinian authority to

take over and misrule, all under the misleading - not to say

wilfully deceptive rubric of the “peace process.”

- Souha Bechara, untitled part 1: everything

and nothing, 1999 (2001) [Translated from

Arabic]

Soha Bechara in untitled part 1: everything and nothing,

[ 16 ] 1991 (2001) Courtesy of Jayce Solloum, 2001

[ 17 ]



Was there ever any other intention at any time? I don’t

think so. It wasn’t peace that they wanted, but pacification

for a time. The Oslo accords were far too much of a whole

with several prior decades of Palestinian dispossession,

house demolitions, land expropriation and attacks on civil

society. As against that, a moral and political solidarity

building up between Palestinians all over the world-some of

it was evident in the past weeks’ worldwide protests.”

- Edward Said at Ewart Hall, The American

University at Cairo [2003]

it goes beyond acceptance, beyond tolerance, it is the

capacity to reach an empathy with the other, in a way

that encompasses everyone. Democratically, with liberty,

equality, and justice. And it’s the creation and maintaining

of a system that asserts itself without attacking and

without assaulting the other on a daily basis.”



Arabic]

Or the more I am close to the unjust, the more painful it

feels? And the farther I am from injustice the less I suffer?

If distance was essential for me and determined my

feelings and decisions, we could not have continued on the

road of resistance, which is a very difficult road.”



Arabic]

“The great historian and theoretician of Colonialism, Patrick

Wolfe, who sadly just passed away said the following: And I

am quoting Patrick Wolfe:

‘Settler colonies were (are) premised on the elimination

of the Native societies. The split tensing ‘where / are’

the split tensing reflects a determinant feature of settler

colonisation. The colonisers come to stay. Invasion is a

structure not an event.’

- Rashid Khalidi The Hundred Year War in

Palestine SOAS University of London

“Liberation of the land is the priority. And then continuing

in political, economic, social, and cultural struggle. We have

no boundaries, our boundaries should be the love that

continues forward. If we want to define that movement,

Soap being made in Beit Sahour.

[ 18 ] Photo by Morgan Totah

[ 19 ]



FURTHER INFO.

Combining field recordings of traditional Palestinian olive oil soap being made in the

West Bank, Occupied Palestine recorded by Morgan Totah of Handmade Palestine,

Palestine solidarity recordings Joshua has gathered in London over the past 8 months,

and theory and discourse around Palestine, Israel and Lebanon sourced from the

Radio Alhara and Learning Palestine 12 hour audio resources. Excerpts include a 2001

interview with Soha Bechara by Jayce Salloum (2001), a 2003 lecture by Edward Said

at The American University at Cairo, and a 2016 lecture by Rashid Khalidi at SOAS

University of London.

An English translation of Soha’s words are included in the transcript (originally

spoken in Arabic)

In between selecting this piece in July 2023, and beginning to create the sound response

in February 2024, the situation has rapidly deteriorated for people both in Gaza

and the West Bank of occupied Palestine. Continued settler violence, destruction of

infrastructure, indiscriminate killing and arrests, and an International Court of Justice

ruling that acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza are plausible, have lead to

international public outrage and ongoing protests urging for a ceasefire and an end to

the assault on Gaza and freedom for Palestinians.

After attending weekly protests in London for over 4 months I decided to record some

of the sounds as a form of archiving the movement and the acts of solidarity between

London and Palestine. This connection transcends political and geographic borders

and centres the demands for basic human rights to be upheld. Over the months many

discussions and resources have been consolidated and made available in order fto

educate people about the ongoing struggle for liberation in Palestine, of which Radio

Alhara has broadcast two 12-hour radio programmes. I reached out to both Radio

Alhara and Learning Palestine to ask permission to include excerpts in this piece. Jayce

Salloum was also generous in sending over additional resources about his contribution:

an interview with Soha Bechara following her release from Khiam detention centre in

1998. I included only short excerpts of the interview so please do listen to the full piece

which can be found online.

Photo from a Palestine Solidarity march in Hackney,

London. November 2023

I’m also extremely grateful to Morgan Totah of Handmade Palestine for agreeing to

collect field recordings of the traditional Palestinian soap making process in such a

difficult period where travel through the Occupied Palestinian Territories is severely

restricted and extremely dangerous. You can read more in depth about her experiences

in her account ‘On Collecting Soap Sounds’.

Thank you to the Palestinian families who agreed for their process to be recorded by

Morgan in Beit Doqo and Beit Sahour.

This series can be heard on the Tate website:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/joshua-woolford-artist-

[ 20 ] residency-new-dialogues-with-sound

[ 21 ]




Ronald Moody

The Onlooker, 1958-62

ALL EMPIRES, AS ALL THINGS MUST,

WILL EVENTUALLY ROT AND DECAY.

Chapter 1:

Year 1500, Norman England

It’s 1500, Norman England, Feudal rule. The great council has recently

been replaced by the Parliament of England leading to greater civil

liberties. If you’re male, over 21 and own land you have the chance to

influence the decisions in the country via a vote.

If you’re not, you don’t. It won’t be until 1774 that Ignatius Sancho votes

in Britain - the first known British African to have done so.

Standing where we are right now, we’re surrounded by water. You’re

wading through it.

For the Thames is much wider than you might be used to. So much

shallower too.

You’re in Westmynstre, just under 2 miles away from London - the

newly established capital of England whose city wall stretches just

beside St Paul’s Cathedral. Westminster will be absorbed into the city

in around 1786.

You’re surrounded by marsh land. It’s infested with mosquitoes, you

hear them, don’t you? Between the sway of reed and gentle flow of the

river between the Flood Plains.

Tate Residency Jam session.

[ 22 ] Photo by Ramzia Jawara

[ 23 ]


4,000 miles away the Caribbean has recently been claimed by

Columbus and is soon to be irreparably damaged by European

colonialism and the plantation system being established. Fellow inmates

from this very spot will be sold into the system of webs connecting

Africa, The Caribbean, Australia and the United Kingdom. The very

systems which funded the building of the Tate Britain galleries.

Chapter 2

Year 1651, Stuart England

It’s 1651 Stuart England and the smell of boiling bones fills the air as

the production of glue is heavy under-way. You’re surrounded by the

walls of Tothill Fields Bridewell Penitentiary. A space for those criminally

inclined. The population of the prison has drastically swelled as 4,000

defeated Royalists are being temporarily imprisoned - held here - ahead

of their being sold into a system of enslavement and trafficking. Sold to

merchants trading in Africa and the West Indies.

The land you’re standing on, claimed from the flowing river maintains

a current. Continued to be a place in motion. No longer a natural,

gentle flow. Violently expelled and without mercy for some. For others,

inhumanely kept and degraded. A final destination, no escape but dying.

Forced migration, trafficking, enslavement

What’s the worth of a human body? To toil?

Reduced to a provider of physical labour for the profits of a few.

The first full society of enslaved people was a recent English infliction

on the island of Barbados, though chattel slavery has been established

for nearly 20 years, and the enslavement of Africans on Sugar

plantations has been enforced for over 100... The population of an

entire continent regarded as no more than providers of labour, produce

and wealth for Europe.

Over and beyond this period systems and structures of extraction and

racialised prejudice are being implanted and engrained through many

mediums. Art and visual representations of British colonies included.

4,000 miles away. Sugar plantation. Sweet sticky air. Blood sweat and

tears.


Blood sweat and tears here, too. We see the bodies dropping.

Diseased and dying.

Chapter 3:

Year 1869, Victorian England

It’s 1860, Victorian England. You’re now in London, as Westminster has

been recently absorbed into the city.

Around 200 miles away Henry Tate, founder of the Tate Gallery, has

gone into partnership with John Wright, a sugar refiner based on

Manesty Lane, Liverpool. It will be another 20 years until the Londonbased

Silvertown refinery opens. But profits are beginning to be made

off the backs of formerly enslaved Caribbeans which later leads to the

acquisition of this very land.

But you are here. Millbank Prison has been built around you. A failed

Panopticon. A failed model prison. Having replaced Tothill Fields

Bridewell Penitentiary and establishing itself as the largest prison in

Europe. Deemed unfit for holding prisoners long-term due to its state

of degradation. A state of Limbo. You’d have spent around 3 months

here before being exiled to Australia along with tens of thousands

other convicts over the years. The next stage would be transportation

via the dreaded prison ships. Getting off lightly when compared to the

sentence of death by hanging, or possibly not..

You could be here for many reasons, most likely theft of some kind.

Crime produced a constant stream of free labour for Britain to expand

and build its colonies. Since the Slave Trade act was introduced in

1807 and the Slave Abolition Act in 1833 these streams needed to be

maintained somehow. And who knows, after serving your sentence in

Australia you may end up becoming quite the successful settler. A life

better off, perhaps, than the city Slums of England.

Chapter 4:

Year 1948, Post-War England

It’s 1948 post-war Britain. You’re now standing in the newly renamed

Tate Gallery. Formerly the National Gallery Millbank and the National

Gallery of British Art before that.

[ 24 ] [ 25 ]


The gallery is preparing for an upcoming exhibition titled Contemporary

South African Paintings, Drawings And Sculpture which will open in

September this year.

The city of London’s population has been overtaken by New York, with

many people leaving the city in search of greener spaces. At the same

time, the British Nationality Act was passed, granting citizenship to the

colonies. Not far down the Thames, in Tilbury, the Empire Windrush has

docked, carrying one of the first large groups of post-war Caribbean

folk, later to be known as the Windrush Generation.

This is the beginning of an influx of emigration from the Caribbean of

people who would start to fulfil the role of workers needed to help with

the post-war reconstruction of Britain.

The gallery has survived a major flood and two World Wars since

its opening in 1897. The room you’re in is part of the original building

containing just 8 rooms and 245 pictures, before being extended

drastically to over double its original size. The environment around you

is now much more familiar to what you might be used to. And extremely

far from what it had been just 100 years earlier.

But to what extent is there, in fact, an overlap? Not in extremity of

deprivation, but in intent. To time travel a bit and quote Shimrit Lee’s

Decolonise Museums:

“The museum was considered an instrument towards such ends--a

space of learning and personal growth for the working class that could

counteract “the corrupt influences of the saloon and the race-track,”

as Boas put it. In this way, the museum served a similar function as the

prison. Both were holding spaces-of objects and bodies, respectivelyas

much as they were highly surveilled institutions that promised

personal salvation and rehabilitation.”

Perhaps this site holds fragments of its memories, unable to fully shake

off its history?

Chapter 5:

Today

You’re back in 2024, but it’s not quite the same as it was... You’re no

longer the same.


understanding. Can you see what I have seen? Unearthed place

memories haunt these walls, the ground beneath our feet.

As with the majority of haunted places, Millbank is a place that has, in

many ways, become somehow infected by what has happened within it.

FURTHER INFO.

What is the history of Tate Britain and the site it stands on? The Onlooker guides

us through the history of Tate Britain and the site it stands on. Plantations and

colonisation in the Caribbean are connected with the historical marshland swamp,

Millbank prison complex and finally Tate Britain Gallery. Supernatural encounters and

sonic reverberations merge past, present and future.

What strikes me most about this piece is the intensity of their focus. They have reduced

their physical body to take up the least possible amount of space that even air

cannot find its way between the limbs, torso and head. All concentration is diverted to

observing Uninterrupted by what their body may demand.

I wished I could ask what they have seen, what memories they held. I started to see

them as a guide and as an entity having belonged long before myself, even before the

gallery which they’re sitting in. I imagined an immovable force, committed to observing

from the beginning of time until the end. I imagined the walls, ceiling and floor of the

gallery being built around the sculpture as if they were literally impossible to relocate.

I went on to imagine, if that were the case, exactly how much they might be able to tell

me about this place. About the interconnections of history which resulted in my being

here. Myself being a member of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora living in London, and

the Tate gallery being funded by profits made from trading in sugar from Caribbean

plantations. After my performance at Queer and Now, I began to see The Onlooker as

a portal through which I could piece together these histories and confront the different

forms of violence which have occurred on and in relation to the site we find ourselves

in - Millbank. And how some of those violences are still being perpetuated through

erasure and mis-representation (see Dancing Scene in the Caribbean by Agostino

Brunias).

While going through resources in the Tate library and archives I came across a

symposium, a day of lectures about the phenomenon of haunting which spoke to

energies embedded in physical objects or geographic locations, this encouraged me to

combine a historic recounting of the site and it’s development over the last 600 years,

with an invitation to open our eyes and ears to the potential supernatural remnants of

previous events and lifetimes preceding us.

How could this confrontation with the past(s) encourage us to reflect on our present

and address issues which linger and refuse to leave?

I invite you to look around again with new eyes and a new




[ 27 ]




Ingrid Pollard

The Cost of the

English Landscape,

1989

The following are quotes taken from various participants in the

research & reading group, as well as quotes read from The cost of the

English landscape : new photography by David A. Bailey, David Fox &

Tony Roberts, John Fraser, Ingrid Pollard.

“Even the title of this work, The Cost of the English Landscape, and

it’s like, what costs are being paid to uphold this [landscape]? And it’s

even the same with like, even digital images, and every time we send an

email - that’s having an impact and we don’t… We’re not encouraged to

think about it basically, you know, so it’s very easily ignored.”

“And everything we do is being upheld, unfortunately, very often by

people who are suffering in order to make these systems run. And

how that is kind of excluded from our everyday - and that is [excluded

from] images we consume if it’s Instagram, if it’s the news, if it’s shiny

advertisements and they don’t show you, like, where these things come

from and what’s actually involved.”

“And Ingrid’s work, she’s talking actually a lot about the nuclear sites

that are built in the English landscape.”

“The Ministry of Defence are one of the largest landowners in the UK,

so when you think about this beautiful English landscape and people’s

access to the outdoors, realistically a very large proportion of that

landscape is used by the army to train in violence so they can then

PRIM x inivia x Tate Residency research & reading group.

[ 28 ] Photo by Ramzia Jawara

[ 29 ]


impose that violence on other people in other geographies, and you

know about the cost of war on a geographical and a climate level.”

‘Throughout England there is a map being made, a map of the land and

its people; it is large and is added to every day. This image map, this

photographic collage of the country, makes and remakes our sense

of place, puts us into place, delivers a sense of place and sometimes

makes us feel out of place. This map which locates and dislocates us

cannot be escaped. We are forever inside the image of the land, its

culture and its naturalness.’

- The cost of the English landscape : new photography by David A.

Bailey, David Fox & Tony Roberts, John Fraser, Ingrid Pollard.

“It’s kind of how your outlook is like: are we asking permission to be

in these spaces and to be accepted into these spaces? Or are we

knowing that… Yeah. Asking or taking?”

“The idea of incorporating the Black figure within this landscape is, it

is an omission of belonging, and that… It shouldn’t be juxtaposed and

it shouldn’t be political but it kind of is, because it’s not something that

we’re allowed to, um, have that connotation [that we do belong].”

“It’s the central figure of going over the border there, you are on public

land so you are meant to feel like you can be there, but it’s how other

people perceive you. What are you as a Black person doing outside of

London, in the middle of nowhere, when you’re literally just frolicking

trying to be at peace, trying to enjoy the landscape the way everyone

else does.”

“Even like looking at the way, I think it’s Ingrid who’s stepping over this

fence, um, but like the way that she’s been split apart and, actually

there’s these really big bold texts ‘KEEP OUT’, ‘NO TRESPASS’,

‘PRIVATE PROPERTY’... And I think… I love being outdoors and in

nature as well but there’s this feeling of disembodiment sometimes, of

actually not feeling like I fully belong there.”


dominant language is technical. All these practices find themselves

caught in a communication system not of their own making.

It is therefore the task of the photographer to discover new ways of

telling and showing, of marking space through new procedures.’

- The cost of the English landscape : new photography by David A.

Bailey, David Fox & Tony Roberts, John Fraser, Ingrid Pollard.

FURTHER INFO.

Exploring the place of black and queer folk within the English landscape, Joshua

hosted a reading group with PRIM between Tate Britain and iniva. During the three

hour session a variety of resources were introduced from both Tate Britain and iniva’s

libraries and archives, touching upon themes of geography, mapping, exclusion, art,

photography and race relations in the UK among others. Excerpts of the readings and

discussions are combined here with sounds of nature recorded by Joshua in London

(Epping Forest and Hackney Marshes) and the ancient woodlands of Dodford,

Worcestershire.

As soon as I selected this piece I knew I wanted to host a session with PRIM, and include

sounds of the forest. Just after the pandemic K Bailey (founder of PRIM) organised a

walk and read around Epping Forest with a small group of us. It was such a beautiful

experience which really stuck with me as the first time really combining being in nature,

and engaging with stories by and about queer and Black folk. I spent a few weeks

going through the Stuart Hall Library and iniva’s archives, finding a selection of

resources which connected to the themes which Ingrid explored through her work, or

themes I associated with the imagery the work contained.

This was the first time I actively used a library and archive for a project in this way and

it was super inspiring having Kaitlene Koranteng, Archivist at iniva guide me down all

these rabbit holes in the lead up to the reading group. The group that came together

was so lovely, the conversations really helped connect the ideas and theories I’d been

reading and thinking about with real life, first-hand experiences. Either of the people in

the room or their family members, or other books or films they’d read which overlapped

and expanded on what I’d prepared. You can hear an excerpt of the 3hr session on the

Tate website.

‘In the age of the image we have to redefine imagination, to photograph

blackness where the dominant colour is white, to photograph the

North when the dominant space is South, to photograph idleness when

the dominant practice is work, to photograph the pastoral when the




[ 31 ]




Glyn Warren Philpot

Repose on the Flight

into Egypt, 1922

Divine triad, nuclear family … Welcome to Kemet - the Black Land…

The sand whispered the travelling family into existence. Through their

tracks and trails, lifted up and carried through the wind.

Joining a legacy of traces and displacements.

Land gently fades into water, along the bank of the Nile stretching from

Lower to Upper Egypt.

Subtle, weighed against the vastness of the desert, the vastness of

time past, present and future. But every detail, every grain of sand, just

as important as the next…

WOMAN OF STONE:

My love, when are we again?

SPHYNX:

The family passes through.

Mother, father, child king…

WOMAN OF STONE:

Em Hotep,

Isis, Horus, Osiris. (overlapping)

Holy Family’s trail into Egypt,

[ 32 ] Manipulated Google Maps image

[ 33 ]



SPHYNX:

Our Black Land, their Refuge

CENTAUR 1:

How many have passed,

How many more to come?

JINN 1:

How many Lifetimes?

JINN 3:

How many massacres?

JINN 2:

How many Revolutions?

JINN 3:

How many revolutions will it take?

SPHYNX:

Yes, oh, yes

Things shift.

CENTAUR 2+3:

We followed them down since Rafah,

protecting them along the way.

SPHYNX:

Oh, how things shift.

There will come a day when even the swell of

the banks are a distant memory.

High Damn, Low Damn, Aswan, Nubia.

Freedom of movement restricted by

governance.

WOMAN OF STONE:

Even this, as all absolutes must, will dissolve…

CENTAUR 1:

We see the shifts,

Binaries introduced and reinforced,

This human species increasingly restricts

themselves.

Even their categorisation of desire.

Why should pleasure have limits?

JINN 2:

If they allowed themselves to be themselves,

and others to be others, their world would be a

beautiful place.

JINN 3:

Not without its discontents

[ 34 ] [ 35 ]

performance texts 2017 - 2024 New Dialogues with Sound

SPHYNX:

Individuality and society will be united.

I have seen it on a distant horizon.

JINN 1:

The seed is planted.

CENTAUR 1:

Just as the cactus blooms, every seed

containing a world which will be recalled. When

the environment allows.

WOMAN OF STONE:

The constant shift. Cyclical. Forever

expanding, contracting.

Before your life times I have seen it too.

Before desert - oasis.

Desertification before and because of them.

But back to that oasis we all return.

Even this body, my body, will be sand once

more...

SPHYNX:

ad aequilibrium

An immense coil, each new beginning closer to

its end than the last.

FURTHER INFO.

Myth has been a rich source of inspiration since the beginning of time. Glyn Philpot’s

piece offers us a window to another world, another time, which Joshua dives into

through abstract sounds and imagined dialogues between the various characters.

By reimagining the characters closer to their Ancient Egyptian roots, rather than the

Greek and Roman reinterpretations, Joshua is addressing the fetishisation and white-

washing of African traditions and stories which are often perpetuated in the modern

day.

For this piece I explored the collections held in the Tate Britain Library and Archives for

connections between Egypt, myth, religion, sexuality and art over the years. In his book

Time Machine: Ancient Egypt and Contemporary Art, James Putnam states:

For the ancient Egyptians, art was creative in a fundamental sense,

since it was regarded as actually 'bringing to life' for eternity whatever it

represented. Imbued with a grandeur, a spirituality and a timelessness,

their images have been copied, interpreted and reworked since antiquity

itself, serving as a source of inspiration and of ideas for artists up to the

present day. (Putnam, 1995)

Reinforcing the importance of looking past the 4th Century, past ancient Greece (the

period to which the creatures were often being attributed in descriptions about the

piece, likely due to the presence of baby Jesus within the painting), and into ancient

Egypt itself, where the painting is set. I knew for this I needed to blur past, present and

future. I gave a voice to each of the mythical creatures in the scene, as if we just tuned

into a conversation they were having between themselves. I focused on the intimacy

between these figures and invited them to take us on a journey through time.

I see the woman of stone as the protagonist - the one constant. She has and will

always be there. Through this timelessness she is often confusing similar memories.

Confusing the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary and Joseph) for the Ancient Egyptian Divine

Triad (Isis, Horace and Osiris). Perhaps rather than confusing disparate events she is

simply living long enough to see them replay. The Sphynx is, in some ways, contrary to

this. They are able to see into the future and are generous in their sharing of information

and reassurances. The three Jinn borrow from Arab mythology and represent curious

inspirants to the poet philosophers (Centaur) and soothsayer (Sphynx) through their

sharp probing questions. The Centaurs, unable to see the future, interrogate the

information they’ve been presented.

Through these characters I wanted to get lost in the fantasy and give a new kind of

voice and power back to them.

You who go, you will return / You who sleep, you will rise / You who walk, you will be

resurrected. (The Night of Counting the Years, Shadi Abdel Salam)




[ 37 ]




Oscar Murillo

Manifestation, 2019–

2020

My name is Joshua Woolford and I’m currently the Interpretation artist

in residence here at Tate. I’ve been working on a series of sound-based

responses to some of the pieces on display around the gallery, of which

this piece - Manifestation by Oscar Murillo - is one.

The sounds you can hear accompanying my voice are excerpts taken

from the first Creative Storytellers workshop I hosted with Prim here

at Tate Britain. During the workshop I guided a group of young people

in responding to this piece through storytelling, electronic and acoustic

instruments.

Manifestation belongs to a series of works by the same name which

the artist has been working on since 2018. Oscar uses oil paint, oil

stick, cotton thread and graphite which are all applied to a surface of

canvas, velvet and linen which he hand-stitches together to create a

mixed-media piece with a rich variety of textures. If you look closely

you can see where the different materials have been sewn together,

forming subtle vertical and horizontal lines behind the painting.

Oscar is known to work on the floor of his studio while creating largescale

pieces like this. This way of working introduces additional marks

and traces such as dirt from his shoes which builds up on the surface

as he walks across the piece during the painting process. He talks

about the layering of visual information and traces as an ‘accumulation

of energy’ which builds up over time.

Oscar was born in La Paila, Colombia and moved to the UK with his

family as a child. His practice includes drawings, sculptures, films and

performances which deal with themes of identity, community and

binaries. He was one of the joint Turner Prize winners of 2019 alongside

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, and Tai Shani. Together they

[ 38 ] PRIM x Tate Creative Storytellers Club

[ 39 ]


decided for the first time in the awards’ history to split the prize in an

act of community and joint recognition.

Oscar has described himself as being porous, he has dedicated a lot

of time to studying art history in order to contextualise his practice

and develop a deeper understanding of art-making and materiality.

He explains how this knowledge can at times present obstacles for

taking an experimental approach - that the knowledge may encourage

you to lean more toward tried-and-tested methods. Because of this

Oscar is actively pushing back to ensure his work remains intuitive and

expressive.

While looking at this piece I experience the gestural marks almost like

a layering of different mental states. The variation in colour and density

of line work seems to embody this: from the lower-central section -

which appears to offer a window through to the very beginnings of

the piece, to this almost cyclical motion whirling around the rest of

the canvas, dominated by black and dark burgundy. Sharp reds burst

through on the left hand side of the canvas, and deep blue on the

right. The exaggerated zig-zag form makes the piece appear to be in a

constant state of motion.

Something I love about this piece is that it is extremely expressive.

The large, dynamic movements and heavily saturated colours are

loaded with energy. I imagine that each mark could contain a range of

emotions. Or that each layer is like a page in a diary, documenting the

experiences of one day at a time.

I also feel a sense of urgency, a choreography of movement and

gestures which will have taken the full body to achieve. Demonstration

and protest are important acts of resistance which the Manifestation

series talks to which is where I think this sense of urgency comes from.

There’s a seductive complexity in the variety of materials, marks, and

emotions triggered. Little flowers are exposed through omission in

the top centre-left, peeking through the red block, their delicacy and

recognisable form contrasting the scrunched up oil stick packaging

dotted around the rest of the piece.


it is, the better the ramen will be.’ And has also compared the process

to that of ageing good wine or cooking a stew. These analogies bring

to mind the nourishing qualities of both food and art. It also brings up

the significance of food in the global South which is where both mine

and Oscar’s family heritage lies. Gathering around food is always a

celebration.

So now I’m interested to turn it around a bit and ask you: What do you

feel or see when you look at this piece?

Oscar is a practising artist, currently represented by David Zwirner

gallery. From 20 July to 26 August 2024 Oscar’s new commission The

Flooded Garden will be on display in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Visitors

are invited to participate in a large-scale collaborative painting over the

month, so make sure to check it out!

FURTHER INFO.

A ten Minute Talk read by Joshua, offering a brief introduction to Oscar Murillo’s

background and practice, as well as Joshua’s s interpretation of the piece. Originally

written and presented during Tate’s Black History Month public programme the audio

now accompanies the piece to offer insights and open dialogue.

During the residency, I thought it was important to invite in a range of voices,

backgrounds and stages of life. As a part of this I developed a Creative Storytellers

workshop series with PRIM for young people aged 11 - 16 in collaboration with the Early

Years and Family Programmes curator Jean Tormey, assistant curator Katherine Eves

and youth organisation City Lions. As a part of the series I hosted the first workshop

where I invited the group to engage with Manifestation, share their observations and

stories, and respond through both electronic sound and acoustic instruments. We

spent the whole morning in front of the piece where each group shared a short live

performance with the public, some of which you’ll hear in the final sound piece.

I chose to deliver this workshop around Manifestation specifically in order to invite

young peoples reflections on abstract art. As there isn’t a strictly imposed narrative I

was curious to hear how they would respond, what they would see and connect with.

You can hear fragments of this session in the final sound piece.

While researching this piece and Oscar’s approach I was really drawn to

the comparisons he makes between his creative processes and that of

cooking or fermentation. He’s stated that ‘Like a ramen broth: the richer




[ 41 ]


peacefully if we can,

forcibly if we must

( video )

Each day forty thousand children die of hunger. The superpowers now

have more than fifty thousand nuclear warheads, enough to destroy

our planet many times. Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose that

bloomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful

and wonderful. (Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace)

And I think about the colonisation of the Caribbean, Dominica specifically

and how Maroons and natives were forced into the thick of it.

Up steep mountainous and dense forest to find refuge from European

settlers who dare not.

Necessity, fear, hope,

Optimism for a future and space where you can... exist.

All these thoughts form fractured pieces, shards with sharp edges.

I pick through them carefully and line them up, align them, as they spill

out one by one.

A splattered mess all over the floor and I’m trying to find some sense.

Trying to recognise myself within the shiny saliva surface.

Trying to see, hear, feel a sense of belonging… longing for it.

Waiting too long for it.

I fondle these thoughts between my fingers and start to feel their body

soften. The words, flint-like, formed in layers which easily crack and break

away. Formed under pressure and over time but not permanent - not

fused, really…

Nothing lasts forever, they say.

Nothing lasts forever.

Video comission for RCA Graduation show 2024

text from a 2-channel video comissioned by RCA CCA graduating

[ 42 ] curators.

[ 43 ]

[ 44 ] Installation shot, Royal College of Art. Photo by Wenxuan Wang

[ 45 ]


Descent into Tumult


Deep Blue,

Deeper,

Deepest blue,

Gently caressing my -

Deep Blue,

Swimming, or

sinking and feeling the -

Deep Blue,

Darker and deeper until -

Deep Blue,

Deeper,

Deepest

Blue.

( guitar / noise / feedback )

Introduce currents / waves crashing sound

Searching the darkness for some kind of

answer,

A response -

Digging deeper as I’m sinking

into the never-ending.

Body limp,

Or - rigid…

Rigor Mortis

Setting …

in…

[ 46 ] Descent 02, 2022, Acrylic, Wall paint, Spray paint,

[ 47 ]

Graphite, Pastels, Charcoal on stretched canvas


Descent into Tumult

But conscious -

still conscious..

Perhaps it’s the fear that’s frozen me

Not slipping into a post-mortem state

A bodies strive for survival

- a desperate attempt at maintaining itself,

homeostatic /

analysing and re-analysing our surroundings

And asking:

what kind of life can we make for ourselves

here?

Down here, in the deep, deeper, deepest blue,

Down here in the deep -

Water ends, drone / void comes in

It’s cold, down here

Dark too.

Oxygen levels far too low to be absorbed..

But this body, our bodies are determined to

live.

To survive the harsh conditions

To compromise

or contradict our natural instincts…

After sinking for so long,

After the suns light no longer penetrates,

It’s impossible to discern what’s up from

what’s down.

Completely stripped of my sense of direction,

of bodily autonomy. Sentient. Able to feel but

not able to respond.

Unimaginable panic,

Inexplicable calm.

Play with sound - introduce a melody (uplifting but eerie)

I’ve been down here for hours and a part of

me thinks that that constant pull is not so

constant after all. That in between the endless

falling and falling… there’s a lift.

Gradual -

or so sudden as to not realise.

Lost in the hypnotic vastness.

Maybe I am rising up,

Maybe I’ll meet a surface to be breached.

Introduce heartbeat (test with mic) lying down on floor.

I’ve been down here for years now.

Under the depths of the ocean,

And I don’t quite understand how…

The human body can tolerate much more than

expected,

Blue became black some time ago,

I can’t tell if my heart is still beating.

Or when I open my mouth to speak if any

words come out.

No-one is around to hear me.

I scream in no direction

To nothing

At, no one.

[ 48 ] [ 49 ]


Descent into Tumult

I try to remember what my voice sounds like.

To remember how it feels when someone truly

cares,

How it feels when your beside me,

How it feels…

I start to loose track.

Did I fall or was I pushed?

From a cliff, or a boat?

Could someone really despise me that badly?

Could they have known what was waiting for

me - an endless descent - a bitter turmoil.

Have you ever asked what’s waiting on the

other side of existence?

But truly, asked - like, really taken the time to

wonder?

Can you imagine a life so different from what

we have now?

[ ERUPTION ]

I’m not sure when it started but at some point

it became all I knew.

I feel like it must have started as a rumble -

That’s it?

It must have been, a slight rumble or a crack…

Maybe it was a crack, one big crack and then

a kind of - almost as if the sound splintered

off in a million directions. And then suddenly

a kind of ‘womph’ - you know like, a ‘womph’

as if a huge mass suddenly shifted direction.

Perhaps it fell - cracking through the surface.

surface just couldn’t bare it any longer,

enduring the weight forever up until that point

and it just couldn’t take it any more.

It cracked, and this solid mass it just sank right

through.

Introduce crackling sound - could be grinding rocks - lay

on plinth backwards

And some days I can’t even look you in the

eye, some days I just can’t.

Some days I can’t make any sense of the

situation we’ve landed in but we’re here -

together - we’re here.

We’re here - together - we’re here.

And what is it we dream of?

And what is it we hope?

What is it you dream of?

What is it you hope?

Sound fades out, soft voice only

What is it you dream of? Is it cosy, safe and

warm?

That must have been what happened. The

Performed at Cromwell Place

(Homotopic: External expressions of the worlds

that live within us), November 2023

text from thirty minute live performance in dialogue with my paintings

[ 50 ] Descent and Tumult. Curated by Pacheanne Anderson

[ 51 ]


this body which is you. i.

all of us. completely.


all these thoughts form fractured pieces,

shards with sharp edges.

I pick through them carefully and line them up,

align them,

as they spill out one by one.

a splattered mess all over the floor and I’m

trying to find some sense.

trying to recognise myself within the shiny

saliva surface.

trying to see, hear, feel a sense of belonging…

longing for it.

waiting too long for it.

I fondle these thoughts between my fingers

and start to feel their body soften.

the words, flint-like, formed in layers which

easily crack and break away.

formed under pressure and over time but not

permanent - not fused, really…

nothing lasts forever, they say.

nothing lasts forever.

and it’s easier to say that when you have

nothing to lose,

but what’s easy when you have nothing?

and it’s easier to forget when you have a world

full of distractions,

but what’s the cost of forgetting?

Unreal Engine Developer Filip Setmanuk

[ 52 ] Photo by Aala Nyman

[ 53 ]


I feel like I’m wading through it,

but I couldn’t tell you what ‘it’ is.

alarm bells ring -

it’s time to shift states again.

wake up again,

play numb again..

at least enough to not lose my mind

I don’t wanna lose my mind.

I choke,

I don’t wanna lose my mind.

Oh, no I never meant to do you harm

it’s easy enough to say you never meant it.


easier to erase it from our collective memory.


but minds, like bodies, get wounds, form scars.

and I’m thinking about the end of time.

a bright light, a wicked flame.

melting and blurring the edges, in a constant

state of becoming.

and I start to wonder - what does a body

need?

what does any body need?

what

does

anybody

need?

this body which has been through so much.

But not more, or less, than yours… perhaps…

this body which is you. i. all of us. completely.

this body which takes up physical space but is

sometimes made to feel too big, too small, too

light, too dark…

this body that can’t even dance at a gas

station.

no joy without fear.

this body which is you. I. all of us. completely.

this ocean body, too hot to handle.

that forest body, exploited and extracted.


bodies trafficked and enslaved in systems

built and upheld by capitalist greed. Another,

hideous, type of body.

populated and upheld by other bodies set on

accumulating personal wealth.


I was recently introduced to a quote by Lilla

Watson, an indigenous Australian artist and

activist who said:

“If you have come here to help me, you are

wasting your time. But if you have come

because your liberation is bound up with mine,

then let us work together.”

and I’m beginning to feel the strings of the

web - tangled and gathered. sticky and

strong. wrapped around this body which isn’t

free until we all are.

this body isn’t free until we all are.

this body which moves, and sways, and fails

and falls.

Performed at Drifts, (Museum of Technology Helsinki),

October 2023

text from thirty minute live performance, accompanied

[ 54 ] by electronic sound and samples.

[ 55 ]


2024 a bond through lifetimes


The fragmentation of memory and the

overlaying of narratives.

Characters merge.

Faces carry portals to experiences and people

we know, knew or imagined.

We’ve been here before,

we’ve been here before.

If we are all manifestations of each others

imaginary, the blurring, dissolving and

reformation of individuals does nothing but

strengthen the experience.

We are vessels, containing portals to various

parts of each-other. Cracked vessels, leaking

as we are filled, and I pour into you.



I’ve never been to our island but you are

surprised to meet me here, in England and not

there, on Dominican shores.

I’m 45 years your younger, yet you remember

us playing by the river as children.

You hold my hands with tears in your eyes and

struggle to fight them back.

You tell everyone that comes near how we

have both known each other our whole lives

and, how could you forget me?

[ 56 ] [ 57 ]


a bond through lifetimes

You hold me close.



You hold me close.


And although I don’t remember it like you do,

And although it seems impossible,

I believe you.

When I look at you I feel a connection stronger

than time and space,

But I am 45 years your younger,

and this one life hasn’t had enough years

to equate

To the moments in your memories.

And you take me back to the river,

A river I have never seen

But dreamed.

A river I have never felt,

but whose current my body remembers.

A life which exists in memory or imagination,

In a space that I’ve not yet encountered with

these two feet,

An air I haven’t breathed,

A fruit I haven’t eaten…

And I wonder what a world would look like

where transportation doesn’t cost lives.

Where access to resources isn’t a world away.

Where family and friends are never far

because distance is no longer a factor to

consider.

I fold, and you fold, and we fold into each

other.

Boundaries dissolving,

and relinquishing ourselves from the politics of

identity and separation.

I breathe and you breathe and we breath

together, thoughts into words and words into

actions.

I breath and you breathe and we breathe

together, actions into thoughts which shake us

to the core.

I breathe and you breathe and we breathe

together.

I breathe and you breathe and we breathe

together.

Let’s breathe together.

Let’s breathe together.

[ Inhale, exhale ]

[ Inhale, exhale ]

And I was recently asked about superpowers,

I chose teleportation as the beginning of a

bridge

Performed at the Austrian Cultural Forum (Disagreements as

Domains of Nausia and Elation), June 2023

text from twenty minute live performance, curated by

[ 58 ] Nimco Hussein.

[ 59 ]


Looking at Shostakovich

Quartet No. 15 opus

144 by Aubrey

Williams

Williams ( live performance )

Dissolving clouds, elements blur into each

other and merge to create a scene which is

in constant motion / in a constant state of

becoming.

Light and dark engaged in a dance, equating in

intensity and grasping for attention.

The red symbol-like geometric shapes

scrawled across the centre. Maybe a

message… A warning?

A million faces inhabit the marble blue. In a

continuous process of boiling, melting….

They drip, condense.

Detail of Shostakovich Quartet No. 15 opus 144 by

Aubrey Williams

[ 61 ]

[ 62 ] Photo by Eugenio Falcioni

[ 63 ]


Colours swirl and merge and drag each other

down into unknown depths.

What appears to be a man-made architectural

form stands boldly in the centre, reminiscent

of a TV tower or a watchtower.

A post-apocalyptic

reminder of the

age of surveillance.

Of broadcast. Of

socialising swathes

of people away from

dissent.

Maybe what I see is

not the dripping of

reality, but the toxic

fumes of man-made

production systems

being pumped into

the atmosphere,

chocking out the blue sky.

Looking at Shostakovich Quartet No. 15 opus 144 by Aubrey Williams

The jaw disjointed.

X-ray skeletal.

Between the ominous masses a serene pale

blue. Silent and weightless.

Perhaps the architectural form is actually a

beacon of hope? A symbolic relation between

heaven and earth, or a scientific desire to

burst from this planet and into another, other

worldly orbit?

From this distance the geometric warning

transforms into a graffitied motif. A welcome

relief. Expressive and uncontrolled.

Mustardy yellow fumes. Mustard yellow couch

cushions made from toxic combinations of

polyurethane foam and flame retardants.

Those symbols still feel like a warning. But

what about red

being erotic, being

seductive?

Similar shapes

emerge, but now in

black.

Another face appears

- this one cottoneyed,

infected by

the mustard yellow

fumes. They’re

grabbing at a snake

or a flower

or some kind of instrument.

And now I see the bridge connecting the left

and right. Foregrounding, perhaps, a watery

depth?

The pool throws back a distorted image of the

tower.

Offering up a narcissus reflection.

Let’s fall

In

Love.

Performed at Tate Britain (Tate Late: Desire, Culture and

History), August 2023

[ 64 ] All images: details of Shostakovich Quartet No. 15 opus

text from thirty minute live performance, curated by Tate

[ 65 ]

144 by Aubrey Williams

Collective Producers

Photo by Anna-Lena Krause


the 5 portals ( live performance )

I believe that it is our individual responsibility to be critically engaged

with our lives: the spaces we inhabit, the systems we propagate by

spending our time, energy, money and head-space on or with.

What the outcomes of that critical engagement are for each of us will

be wildly different…

What do we do when we are faced with a scenario that doesn’t serve

us?

What do we do when we acknowledge the fact that we are passively or

actively contributing towards systems of harm and oppression?

How do we navigate through the smoke-screens in order to identify

where our alliances truly lie?

How do we communicate our new-found knowledge both in and

between the colonial languages which have forcefully become so

prominent?

Não sei,

I don’t know,

No sé,

Je ne sais pas.

Ik weet het niet,

I ask myself, often multiple times a day, what would I need to truly feel

happy?

What would I need to feel free and supported?

What would I need to feel confident in my decisions rather than guilty

or ashamed by the results of my actions?

Photo by Mika Kailes

[ 69 ]

[ 70 ] Photo by Mika Kailes

[ 71 ]


These questions I struggle to answer, and realise that in a world where

so much information is hidden and safeguarded. finding those answers;

finding freedom, is a constant struggle.

Like an elaborate contraption it is difficult to see what may happen if

you tug on this, or re-move that…

I often think that I wouldn’t be able to be truly happy as long as there is

suffering in the world.

Then, in order to make my hope of happiness more plausible, I think

that I wouldn’t be able to be truly happy as long as there is suffering in

the world which I am contributing towards.

the 5 portals

where they came from.. and still I struggle to detach myself.

I wonder why? And how did it get like this? And what I can or I am

prepared to do to make a change?

I struggle because every day I am confronted with this urgency to just

do something!

And I find myself here, in front of you. Desperate and distracted…

Can you imagine a world where you are truly happy?

Can you imagine a world where we are truly happy?

But I struggle to know all the ways i, as an individual, can detach

from the capitalist, patriarchal, colonial landscape that we all meet in

together today,

But … there are a few things that I am aware of, that we are aware

of. And there are definitely steps to be made toward relinquishing

ourselves from the habits handed down to us which have been calling

on us to reinforce them: habits which ignore the impact we have on our

neighbours and our planet.

How can I be happy when I am reading this very text from a phone

which more likely than not has been produced by modern slavery, child

labour, poor working conditions or unfair pay?

I am aware of the cobalt mines. I am aware of the netting built around

factories which supply Apple technology to reduce the chances

of employees being able to take their own lives. I am aware of the

destructive processes involved in extracting raw materials that become

metal, glass, battery, silicone.

And still I hold you.

I’m sorry…

I’m .. sorry..

Photo by Mika Kailes

I no longer find things beautiful when I learn how they were made or

Performed at Tate Britain (Queer & Now), June 2023

text from thirty minute live activation of the 5 portals

[ 72 ] soundscape, curated by Hannah Geddes.

[ 73 ]


Singing Nina Simone, Work Song:

Breakin’ rocks out here on the chain-gang

Breakin’ rocks and serving my time

Breakin’ rocks on the chain-gang baby

‘cause they done convicted me of crime

Hold it right there, let me hit it

Well I reckon that oughta get it.

I’ve been working,

and working,

But I still got so

terribly far to go..

I committed crime,

lord I needed

Crime of being hungry

and poor,

I left the grocery store

man bleeding,

when they caught me

robbin’ his store.

Hold it right there, let

me hit it

Well I reckon that

oughta get it,

I’ve been working,

and working,

But I still got so terribly far to go.

Playing Nina Simone, Work Song live

performance at Carnegie Hall, 1963.

Been working and working,

But I still got so terribly far to go.

Breakin’ rocks and serving my time.

Breaking rocks out here on the chain-gang,

Cause they done convicted me of crime.

Hold it right there while I hit it,

Well I reckon that’s gonna get it,



I’ve been working and working,

I’ve been working so hard.

I’m gonna see my sweet honey baby,

Gonna break this chain off to run,

Gonna lay down somewhere shady,

Lord it sure is hot in the sun.

Hold it steady right there while I hit it,


I’ve been workin’ and workin’ so hard.

I heard the judge say five years labour,

On the Chain-gang you gonna go.

I heard the judge say five years labour,

I heard my old man scream ‘Lordy No!’

Hold it right there while I hit it,

Well I reckon that’s gonna get it.

I’ve been working and working and working,

And I’m so tired of working and workin’,

I’m gonna see my sweet honey baby,

Gonna break this chain off and run,

I’m gonna lay down somewhere shady,

Lord I sure am hot in the sun.

Gonna stand right there while I hit it,


I’ve been working and workin’ and workin’,

I’m so tired of working and working,


Breakin’ rocks and serving my time,


Cause they done convicted me of crime.

HOLD IT!

WORKING, WORKING, AND WORKIN’

I’VE BEEN WORKING, WORKING,

Working,

Working so hard.

[ 74 ] [ 75 ]


so terribly far to go

Reading text:

It doesn’t just go out, the heat,

the inner-flame.

A force to be reckoned with.

Smoke, is fumes,

is deadly heat, deathly inhale.

Pushed up, out, from core.

Flowing, flowing.

River of time,

wherein time congeals,

wherein fractal time,

melted time,

time created

re-created,

again,

and again.

A river which flows.

Each layer a fresh surface.

Bulbous, blistering, bulging,

until skin tears.

Only to begin again in solidifying.

New layer, refresh,

New layer, refresh.

Everlasting

Lighting

up

the

sky.

Set in stone.

Scalding the sea

Set in stone.

Flames mark the

setting in

Making ground

Burnt treacle molasses

Riding in waves,

forms burnt black oceans

Structures defined while

cascading

Passed on, handed down.

Gliding

effortlessly

Coming to a short, sharp, stop.

Colliding

Splitting

Tearing from what it once was

Forming something

new.

Inexplicable force.

All change is violence.

It? Must? Be?

The suns surface seems constant

even.

From here

Sediment, ash and shards of

volcanic glass

Billowing.

Formed under pressure.

Condensed yet unconfined

Sulphur infused masses

A volcanic island can be wiped

out multiple times before

establishing itself.

Crumbling and dispersed back

into the ocean

Elements migrate

Foundations fail.

Generations of built-up pressure

Expelled in th(is/ese) very

moment(s)

What’s strange is that

from afar..

it could be considered a smooth

exchange.

[ 76 ] [ 77 ]


so terribly far to go

Singing Nina Simone, Sinnerman:

He said, go to the Devil.

So I ran to the devil,

he was waiting, I ran to the Devil,

he was waiting, I ran to the devil,

He was waiting,

All on that day.

So I ran to the devil,

he was waiting, I ran to the devil,

he was waiting,

Ran to the devil,

he was waiting, all on that day.

[ looped ]

Reading passages from A Short Account of the

Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas which

specifically feature the word ‘devil’ over the looped Nina

Simone lyrics.

Performed at HOME by Ronan McKenzie, January 2023

text from thirty minute live performance, featuring

[ 78 ] excerpts from Nina Simone live recordings.

[ 79 ]


Molten Form: Assumed

Identity I ( video

video )

A smooth decent to physical

chaos

A lone agent.

Born into a world that prides

itself on aggressive manipulation

and undeserved accumulation of

power & control.

I’d ask you to look.

But by now I understand that

appeals to your moral judgement

do no more than float into the

void.

Those eyes burn straight through

with a blinding intention to acquire

more.

Self preservation in a world of

constant decay…

This hybrid, imagined form, takes

its first breaths.

The air tastes sweet.

Saturated with false hopes

Fortified with broken promises.

Teetering on the edge of

existence.

You stole my breath.

You stole my breath.

[ looped ]

Im gunna cross my fingers

Gunna pray to god

I’m gunna ask for help


I’m gunna count to 10

I’m gunna wait it out



I’m gunna build my strength

I’m gunna take control



I’m gunna shut it out

I’m gunna close my eyes



I’m gunna show no fear

I’m gunna take it on



I’m gunna cry all night

I’m gunna drink all day



I’m gunna turn my back

Not admit i’m wrong



Video comission for Harold Offeh's 'Of Mythic Worlds'

[ 80 ]

Videography by Siniša

3-channel digital video + 8 minute soundscape,

exhibited at the Sainsbury Centre

[ 81 ]


what do you see (you see

this brave face) ?


The fact of the matter is...

Or, wait,

Let’s put it like this..

It doesn’t matter what I do

And it doesn’t matter what I say

Or

If I say what I want , or say what I

expect you to want me to say,

Either way. I assume. That what

you will get. Or how you will

read or understand me will be

no different than what you knew

before the official interaction ever

began.

Do you see what I mean?

What I’m trying to say is that me

and you are nothing alike.

Or

What i’m trying to say is that me

and you are exactly alike.

And you can’t stand that, can

you?

Alors

mon Cher.

Qu’est-ce que c’est?

What is it?

What is it?

What is it?

Do you even know the things that

make your skin crawl? That turn

you on.

Have you tasted them?

Would you recognise them if you

had? Revisit or recreate the exact

conditions.

Again

And again

And again

And again

And again

And again

And again

And again

And again.

Until the very action disintegrates

between your fingertips.

[ 82 ] Photo by courtesy of Thorp Stavri

[ 83 ]

What I despise the most about

you. Which is to say. What I

despise the most about myself

is the fear. The fear to be free.

Which is to say the fear to be

responsible, totally, for our own

life. Our own and actions.

What happens when we have

nothing left to blame? When the

stilts of poison corrode but not

before burrowing deep inside.

Leaving their imprint. Sometimes

a prick. Sometimes a wound. A

gash that can not; will not be

sealed.

What happens then?

Have we grown? Have we learned

something? Are we longing for

return? Striving to the ‘future’?

Possibly that fear is what binds

us.

What do you see,

When I feel what I feel?

You see this brave face?

That’s fear of reaction.

You see this brave face?

That’s fear of reaction.

performance texts 2017 - 2024 what do you see when i feel what i feel?

Performed at The Factory Project, October 2021

[ 84 ] Photo by courtesy of Thorp Stavri

text from twenty minute live performance, accompanied

by intentional feedback from wireless mic

[ 85 ]


What happens over that

edge? ( written piece for

Letter To My Little Queer Self )

Stare into nothing for as long as you can bare

Until you start to feel a gentle tug

As your soul slips in-between your ribs.

Creeps through your muscles.

Seeps through the pores of your skin.

Standing on this familiar edge between what you know

and what you never will.

The thoughts you’re no longer thinking echo in the vast

nowhere you’ve started to become accustomed to.

This vastness is the space and time you can truly afford

to yourself.

Lost within yourself, without direction.

It’s scary to go so deep, I know.

Especially now when this area is yet to be claimed, to be

decorated and made fit for inhabitance.

But each new day and every experience has the

opportunity to enter and proliferate here.

You cannot control everything that happens on the

outside, but you do decide what comes in and goes out.

This is your safe space and a space you will soon come

to love and defend with as much passion and care as

you can.

But don’t stay here too long to shut the

outside world out.

Even though this is one of the limited places you can

actually see and feel yourself.

There are still people and places waiting for you.

To be discovered.

And you will discover them.

x

[ 86 ] [ 87 ]

what do you see (when i feel

what i feel)? ( written for BLK

MOVEMENT video )

What do you see

When my body moves?

Stick to the beat

Beat

Skip and twist.

Videography by Jeanie Crystal

Watch as I spread my arms

To take up space.

The same air I breathe

You breathe

Breath ...

[ Inhale, exhale ]

[ inhale, exhale ]

[ 88 ] Videography by Jeanie Crystal

[ 89 ]

performance texts 2017 - 2024 what do you see (when i feel what i feel)?

Let me move in my own way.

Not in admiration

Or disgust

Of you.

Freedom.

‘What does freedom mean to me?

No fear!’

When I move is it beautiful?

Is it strange?

Do you watch in fascination?

Are you waiting to classify what

this is?

Only To be disappointed that

it’s not something you can

commodify?

Can appropriate

Is this... appropriate?

What do you see when I feel what

I feel?

Moving without direction - is this

moving with soul? Moving with

frustration? With passion? With

regret? With ... hope?

Is this an act of defiance?

Allowing myself be seen in the

way that I decide? At the pace

that I decide?

Videography by Jeanie Crystal

Does my sassiness offend you?

This strange fruit, hangin’ in its

living room.

[ 90 ]

Installation shot, HOME by Ronan Mckenzie


Patois ( video )

Alors dis-moi…

Qu’est-ce qui s’est cassé?

La façon dont nous parlons - à ton image

Un reflet décousu de ce qui se passe réellement dans

notre esprit.

Un mutant linguistique

Élevé avec force

Notre être même.

Brisé en éclats,

et reconstitué.

Déformé et refaçonné.

Tordu et tourné

Et jeté sur le trottoir

Former un plat qui t’es acceptable.

Rentre, mon cher

Mais attention aux bords tranchants.

Oh, ne serait-ce pas un gâchis -

Le goût du fer chaud coule sur ta langue.

Le sang sur tes mains est dans ta bouche, mon cher.

Alors… Voilà comment se déroule l’histoire:

So tell me…

What’s broken about it?

The way that we talk - in your image

A disjointed reflection of what’s really going through our

mind.

A linguistic mutant

Forcefully bred

Our very being.

Broken into shards,

and pieced back together.

Warped and remoulded.

Twisted and turned

And kicked to the curb

Forming a dish that is palatable to you.

Tuck in, my dear

But watch the sharp edges.

Oh, wouldn’t that be a mess -

The taste of warm iron trickling thick over your tongue.

The blood on your hands is in your mouth, my dear.

So… This is how the story goes:

[ 92 ] [ 93 ]

PRIMAL BETRAYAL

( video )

Once a shell so tough that you marvel in

the irony,

of a cellar invasion, an alien infection.

Complete transformation.

The defences are up but the barriers fall

short.

Fallout.

What are the symptoms this time?

Formal mutations.

Will the transition itch and scratch?

Should I brace for pain on expulsion?

The barrier harbours infiltrators.

providing a breeding ground.

until they’re strong enough to attack.

Primal betrayal.

I don’t recall the moment I relieved you of

your duties.

Was it that time I thought, ‘I can look after

myself’?

Was I taken that seriously?

Or did you weaken over time?

Is this a matter-of-fact?

Am I applying too much pressure?

And how does this colonisation affect?

Inscribe a new biological language

Translate the original code

We act differently now, we must

we’ve seen it all before, we know the drill

Who decided it would go like this?

Certainly not me.

And when we fall back to our old

patterns,

Rewrite our habits until the past

dissolves

We find ourselves at the terminus

A fresh start

Our blank canvas

We caress and love and pump full of

poison

Who wins in the end?

To whom must I go to intercede for me in

this endless battle?

Mind over matter, they say

Bite the hand that feeds

Test it, try it out.

There’s a sense of seduction in it.

The cause of a rupture…

infected cells yield infected cells

An endless cycle

[ 94 ] [ 95 ]

references & inspiration

references & inspiration

Dancing with the devil / a symphony of

organs scattered over the floor

Between the World and Me (2015) Ta

Nehisi-Coates

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated (2021)

Alaa Abd-El Fattah

New Dialogues with Sound: Mona Hatoum

Edward Said at Ewart Hall (2003) The

American University at Cairo

Handmade Palestine

www.handmadepalestine.com

Learning Palestine

www.learningpalestine.net

Mona Hatoum - Centre Pompidou/

Kiasma (2006) Museum of Contemporary

Art Kiasma https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=tCUE8sa0z4I

On Collecting Soap Sounds (2024)

Morgan Totah

Radio Alhara www.radioalhara.net

sans titre/untitled

the video installation as an active archive

from: Parachute #108, Beyrouth_Beirut,

pgs. 164-176, Dec. 2002.

Jayce Salloum © 2005

The Hundred Year War in Palestine (2016)

Rashid Khalidi at SOAS

Curated by Denzil Forrester; Text by John

La Rose, Errol Lloyd

Decolonize Museums (2022) Shimrit Lee

Dhalgren (1974) Samuel R. Delany

Freedom Dreams (2002) Robin D. G. Kelley

From Convicts to Curators: A history of

Millbank and the Tate. (2003) Krzysztof

Cieszkowski. Tate Britain, London

Invisible Man (1952) Ralph Ellison

On Identity (2000) Amin Maalouf

Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar

in Modern History (1986) Sidney Mintz

Symposium: ‘The Haunted Place: History,

Horror, and the Gothic Imagination’ (2002)

Tate Britain, London

The Enemy Within : Statements by Black

People on the State of Race Relations

in Britain (1981) Compiled and edited by

Barbara Taylor

The Outsider (1942) Albert Camus

The Souls of Black Folk (1903) W.E.B. Du

Bois

Your Silence Will Not Protect You (2017)

Audre Lorde

New Dialogues with Sound: Ingrid Pollard

Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take

Photographs (1991) Edited by Tessa Boffin,

Jean Fraser

Terra infirma: Geography’s Visual Culture

(2000) Irit Rogoff. Routledge, London

The Cost of the English Landscape : New

Photography (1989) David A. Bailey, David

Fox & Tony Roberts, John Fraser, Ingrid

Pollard.

The Map is Not the Territory (2001)

England & Co, London

New Dialogues with Sound: Glyn Phipot

Blood Child (1995) Octavia E. Butler

Can The Monster Speak? (2021) Paul B.

Preciado

Civilization and its Discontents (1930)

Sigmund Freud

Coming on Strong : Gay Politics and

Culture (1989) Edited by Simon Shephert,

Mick Wallis, Simon Shepherd

Contemporary Art and Classical Myth

(2016) Edited by Isabelle Loring Wallace,

Jennie Hirsh

Coptic Stone Sculpture: The Early

Christian and Late Classic Art of Egypt

(1962) André Emmerich Gallery

Dhalgren (1974) Samuel R. Delany

The Centaur’s Difficulty when Dismounting

the Horse (1976) Jochen Gerz

The Night of Counting the Years / The

Mummy / ءايموملا (1969) dir. Shadi Abdel

Salam

Time machine : Ancient Egypt and

contemporary art (1994) James Putnam

and W. Vivian Davies

peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must

Being Peace (2020) Thich Nhat Hanh

Chartism: A New History (2007) Malcom

Chase

In Our Time: Chartism (2023) Melvyn

Bragg, BBC Radio 4

O’Connor’s Dream: Great Dodford Chartist

Settlement (2009) Kate Shaw

this body which is you. i. all of us.

completely.

Aboriginal Rights group (1970s)

Queensland

Trouble (2000) Coldplay

Where Is My Mind? (1988) Pixies


A Short Account of the Destruction of the

Indies (1552) Bartolomé de las Casas

THE LOCATION OF LEBANON

Portraits and Places in the Videography of

Jayce Salloum (2002) by Michael Allan

untitled part 1: everything and nothing,

1999 (2001) Jayce Solloum

https://vimeo.com/71401594

New Dialogues with Sound: Ronald Moody

Belonging in Britain - father’s hands: Ingrid

Pollard in conversation with Professor

Andrew Dewdney (2009)

Black Britain : a photographic history

(2007) Paul Gilroy, preface by Stuart Hall.

Saqi Books

Image Matters (2012) Tina Campt

Emergence Magazine: Ecology, Culture

and Spirituality. Vol. 4: Shifting Landscapes

(2023) Edited by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee,

Seana Quinn

Flying Too Close to the Sun : Myths in Art

from Classical to Contemporary (2018)

James Cahill

From an Antique Land : Travels in

Egypt and the Holy Land (1989) David

Roberts

Nina Simone, Work Song (1963) Live at

Carnegie Hall.

what do you see (you see this

brave face) ? / what do you see (when i

feel what i feel) ?

Nina: An Historical Perspective (1970) Dir.

Peter Rodis

Artist and Empire : Facing Britain’s Imperial Landscape Education Pack (1995) Rohini

Still I Rise (1978) Maya Angelou

Past (2016) Edited by Alison Smith, David Malik. Institute of International Visual Arts,

Blayney Brown, Carol Jacobi.

London

Primal Betrayal

Our Fatal Magic (2019) Tai Shani

Caribbean Connection 1995:

New Geographies of Race and Racism

Certainly (1997) Erykah Badu

Ronald Moody, Aubrey Williams, Frank (2008) Caroline Bressey, Claire Dwyer

The Book of the Sphinx (1974) Colin Naylor

[ Bowling, 96 ] John Lyons, Bill Ming (1995)

[ 97 ]

performance texts [ 2017 - 2024 ]

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