Project Description
The space is filled with material stretched diagonally from the floor to the balcony. It is a thin, transparent, elastic, material and fills the space above the artist’s head. It is a material that has the ability to wrap, fold, stretch, contain, constrict, protect, suffocate and tear. The material is Clingfilm, but on stage, glimmering in the lights it is transformed from a cheap domestic product to an elegant material resembling spider’s silk, it’s presence throughout the piece, reminding the audience of the dangers of beauty.
The artist enters this space and picks up a roll of that very same material that surrounds her. She begins exploring its beauty. The Clingfilm becomes a scarf, a lens through which I scan my surroundings and finally a mask. The Clingfilm mask serves simultaneously as a protective layer and suffocating plastic. As breathing becomes difficult, the artist pierces a hole with a British Passport, allowing her to breathe and offering the audience a clue as to her nationality. A man’s voice asks, “Where is the woman who would not be beautiful?” concluding that no such woman exists. He then proceeds to dictate painful methods women should follow in order to achieve beauty. The artist begins to follow his instructions, sometimes pre-empting them, as is they are part of a routine she already knows. She begins applying bleaching cream, and drinking vinegar to make the skin pale, squirting perfume in the eyes to make them brighter. A mask is created, a mask of other people’s ideals of beauty but the mask is not beautiful; it is a lumpy, dripping, smelly, concoction.
Disillusioned with other people’s unachievable ideals of beauty, she removes the mask and drink bleach, as a way of removing those internal desires to pass as white. Turning her attention to the audience. She slowly strips away the silky material that covers the crinoline cage, to reveal a flag skirt made up of the nationalities that inform her identity; British, Zimbabwean and Irish. As she strips away the flags she begins to challenge the spectators’ visual prejudice. She begins a list of what she thinks the audience thinks about her ethnicity and nationality, from their pre-existing notions of foreign nations that are not their own.
The artist is left standing in a cage surrounded by flags, stripped of national identity, trying to define what she is. A man walks on stage, regards the mess left on the table, by her attempts to be white. He approaches the artist and hands her an envelope. The envelope contains her identity, a word that she has both blindly denied, and accepted whole-heartedly. He defines her as “Other”.
“Other” is not an ethnic group, “other” is alienating and estranging. “Other” is ambiguous. It goes beyond racial definition; it goes beyond rigid borders and boxes of race. “Other” denies culture and nation. The word “other” is contentious, and the stranger’s role in handing the artist her identity in a sealed envelope provokes a healthy confusion. Firstly, the origin of the letter is unknown; there is a sense that this man is just a messenger from an invisible organisation that we are all apart of. (society). He hands the artist her “own” identity as she is struggling to define it on stage. She reacts to the definition but presents the definition to the audience; she does not throw it back at him. She accepts the definition of “other” and all it’s contention but she is still contained inside the cage; she has not been set free by this definition. The audience is left to decide what it means to be “other”.
The artist enters this space and picks up a roll of that very same material that surrounds her. She begins exploring its beauty. The Clingfilm becomes a scarf, a lens through which I scan my surroundings and finally a mask. The Clingfilm mask serves simultaneously as a protective layer and suffocating plastic. As breathing becomes difficult, the artist pierces a hole with a British Passport, allowing her to breathe and offering the audience a clue as to her nationality. A man’s voice asks, “Where is the woman who would not be beautiful?” concluding that no such woman exists. He then proceeds to dictate painful methods women should follow in order to achieve beauty. The artist begins to follow his instructions, sometimes pre-empting them, as is they are part of a routine she already knows. She begins applying bleaching cream, and drinking vinegar to make the skin pale, squirting perfume in the eyes to make them brighter. A mask is created, a mask of other people’s ideals of beauty but the mask is not beautiful; it is a lumpy, dripping, smelly, concoction.
Disillusioned with other people’s unachievable ideals of beauty, she removes the mask and drink bleach, as a way of removing those internal desires to pass as white. Turning her attention to the audience. She slowly strips away the silky material that covers the crinoline cage, to reveal a flag skirt made up of the nationalities that inform her identity; British, Zimbabwean and Irish. As she strips away the flags she begins to challenge the spectators’ visual prejudice. She begins a list of what she thinks the audience thinks about her ethnicity and nationality, from their pre-existing notions of foreign nations that are not their own.
The artist is left standing in a cage surrounded by flags, stripped of national identity, trying to define what she is. A man walks on stage, regards the mess left on the table, by her attempts to be white. He approaches the artist and hands her an envelope. The envelope contains her identity, a word that she has both blindly denied, and accepted whole-heartedly. He defines her as “Other”.
“Other” is not an ethnic group, “other” is alienating and estranging. “Other” is ambiguous. It goes beyond racial definition; it goes beyond rigid borders and boxes of race. “Other” denies culture and nation. The word “other” is contentious, and the stranger’s role in handing the artist her identity in a sealed envelope provokes a healthy confusion. Firstly, the origin of the letter is unknown; there is a sense that this man is just a messenger from an invisible organisation that we are all apart of. (society). He hands the artist her “own” identity as she is struggling to define it on stage. She reacts to the definition but presents the definition to the audience; she does not throw it back at him. She accepts the definition of “other” and all it’s contention but she is still contained inside the cage; she has not been set free by this definition. The audience is left to decide what it means to be “other”.