[In order of appearance from age 8 onwards] Your skin is the colour of shit A science teacher: Let’s put a bit of your hair in the bunsen burner to see if it burns differently. [It burns differently] Your hair is like pubes I want to take you outside and rape you. I would. Come outside. I would take you…
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i want to talk about a woman’s silent refusal i want to raise the volume all thick step off of a ledge and into a gap i want to write the word ‘consent’ out over and over, until it becomes unfamiliar and then, only when my eyes capture a new dissonance, i can begin to redefine the word’s meanings. Or…
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Falling Score
Sitting with the small fact about me that I used to want blonde hair and blue eyes So it was. A glitch. Can you see her? This blonde woman with blue eyes. Desiring her is a young act of falling away from myself. When I catch my reflection in a window in Deptford market, I shudder. These moments are when…
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Small thoughts on work by self-identifying women of colour
I’m in Edinburgh and I’m seeing shows to ‘diagnose’ as part of The Sick Of The Fringe. I’m meeting new faces and being reminded that one of the freedoms that being paid (a bit) to be up here is that I can seek out shows around my more organised schedule. I’m in need of comfort you see. I need a return…
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A Collage
I am startled by light. Startled into light. Startled onto light. Things are clearer closer up – the sound of birds wings flapping gives a sense of satisfaction. Car engines feel like a shame, personalised number plates overly brash and manicured lawns are puzzling. Alone with a million trees. Giant oaks lean over and reprimand her for her ignorance, for…
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Timelines
I realise (2017) that I began dancing on stage (2000) to taste taking up space without hindrance. At the time, I was dancing because someone had noticed me and unlike the later noticing (2004) that made my body freeze and my insides hurry to fold in on themselves cell by cell, this noticing involved making spaces that I could flesh…
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Open Call I’m looking for voluntary submissions from artists working within any discipline for a book I’d like to then edit. I’ve been grappling for the longest time with experiences of sexist, racist and sexual violence and I while I am actively engaging with healing, moving on is a long journey. And so, a book – to document and to…
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Yesterday’s News
I started this article 16th April 2016. Now in Feb 2017, I’ll endeavour to finish it…Yesterday’s News finally written today. 16th April 2016 I picked up a Sunday paper’s supplement a while a go and the feature article was an account of body dysmorphia affecting teenagers. It interviewed a teenager and her mum alongside a profile of a mental health centre offering…
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Short talk for ‘Dance, Diaspora and the role of the Archive’; A conference by State of Emergency in Partnership with Society for Dance Research, University of Bedfordshire
As I am sure has been covered much today, in one way or another, archives and archivists are not impartial, neutral or objective. I think that archives have the power to make memory and the power to withhold or forget memories. Archivists Joan M Schwartz and Terry Cook have written that archives ‘have been about power – about maintaining power,…
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British Museum We Don’t Believe You, various origins, various materials and various voices (London, 27th November 2015)
I made the mistake of going to the Room 25 of the British Museum. And then some time later, I decided to take my mother there. And some months later still, I took a group of artists to join me in my empty, hopeful search. As I introduced the first task and everyone set about their way navigating the desolate…
