24 September - 2 October 2021
The liquid lake calls to us, reminding us of the watery world from whence we all came. We are 60% water, or so the saying goes…so how do we build the hydrocommons of our dreams? How do we fight the fires, the floods, the pollutants, the droughts that have become the status quo? Can we throw our individualism out with the bath water or instead siphon it into shared waterways and pool our resources. Can we rebuild relations with our amphibious allies, the creatures of yesteryear. Slip slip into something more comfortable, a wet suit perhaps? A slippery seal coat that transforms us from human to animal. A slippery sexuality that transforms us across the multitude of genders and ebbs and flows with the tides. We are the marine lovers of today and our fishy beginnings have only just begun. - Zoë Marden
‘Marine Lovers...their fishy beginnings’ is an exhibition and performance by Zoë Marden. Running from 24 September until 2 October in the project space at V.O Curations, the exhibition consists of a new two-channel film shot by Charlie Hope and Rosie Taylor, and a multimedia installation. Populated by a series of new ceramic ‘anemone’ sculptures, Marden’s installation echoes various forms of aquatic, alien creatures, and their surroundings, seen and felt elsewhere in the exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a newly commissioned performance that is an exploration of watery embodiment, looking specifically at the writing of Astrida Neimans in her text, Bodies of Water. Working in collaboration with Mohammed Rowe, Imogen Alvares and Pierre, sound within the performance will be generated live, incorporating a mix of field recordings and creating an improvisational feedback loop between the performers and the live audio.
This project is presented by AORA and V.O Curations.
July 2021
Mermainia: Tales of Tentacularity (the tentacles of COVID Capitalism) a work in progress… is a live performance on multiple platforms layered with pre-recorded fragments that was streamed live in June 2020. It was part of project: so remember the liquid ground, which derives from the writings of feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, who considers water as a site of possibilities and a force of differentiation.
It was is conceived as a programme of meditative and sensorial experiences across the digital, physical and spiritual realms. The immersive programme features newly commissioned live sound streaming, moving images and performances, by Soundcamp collective, Myriam Lefkowitz and Julie Laporte, Zoë Marden, Eduardo Navarro, Anna Nazo, Himali Singh Soin and Linda Stupart.
So remember the liquid ground is curated by Benjamin Darby, Yoojin Kang, Akis Kokkinos, Angelina Li, Lenette Lua and Louise Nason as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art in partnership with Gasworks.
This video was commissioned by Document Journal for their Artist in Isolation Series.
My work is propositional, to imagine other realms or other ways of being in the world. The COVID-19 crisis is a terrifying situation that is laying bare the inequality in the world and showing us how capitalism is fraying at the seams. This piece is an attempt to make sense of what is happening around us, to see what portals exist in this time of potential radical change.
This piece comes out of a long term research project on Donna Haraway’s writing on tentacular thinking; her work is poetic activism and perfect reading during a pandemic. This piece brings together different strands of my research in a sort of visual essay/conversation. Since my self isolation began a couple of weeks ago I can’t count how many Zoom meetings I have been on so I decided to use a recording of one of them in the piece. Video conferencing has become our new way of communicating and being intimate with one another.
To think tentacularly is to think collectively, collaboratively. We are forging tentacular networks that never existed within our communities: Mutual Aide becomes Making Kin and vis versa. Contemporary life is suspended in ways we thought impossible. So what impossibilities can we think up?
what other impossibles can become possible?
As Donna would say.
Think we must.
Mermaids, tentacles and other stories is a lecture/performance a form that I have been developing over the past year. In effect I am painting with videos and images creating a live collaging effect while simultaneously overlapping with voice and song. This performance was part of Between Aeaes and the rocks of Scylla curated by Anne Duffau and Alix Marie at The Horse Hospital.
Look at this stuff
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl
The girl who has ev'rything?
Look at this trove
Treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Lookin' around here you'd think
(Sure) she's got everything
I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty
I've got whozits and whatzits galore
(You want thingamabobs?
I got twenty)
But who cares?
No big deal
I want more
I want to be where the people are
I want to see
want to see 'em dancin'
Walkin' around on those
(Whad'ya call 'em?) oh - feet
Flippin' your fins you don't get too far
Legs are required for jumpin', dancin'
Strollin' along down a
(What's that word again?) street
Up where they walk
Up where they run
Up where they stay all day in the sun
Wanderin' free
Wish I could be
Part of that world
Mermaids, Tentacles & other stories, Between Aeaea and the Rocks of Scylla Curated by Alix Marie & A—Z, Horse Hospital, London, 2019
Ursula’s Tentacles are Staying with Dona Haraway’s Trouble is a multimedia installation and performance that was part of the exhibition, Equinox Light Cure at Exposed Arts in London.
https://www.exposedartsprojects.com/equinox-show
Ursula the sea witch is frightening in her abundance of Flesh, her large stature and her sharp tongue. She is Queen of all Drag Queens, the queen of filth, Divine in animated form. She pokes fun at female stereotypes, she is the ultimate feminist anti-hero. Ursula’s tentacles are staying with Dona Haraway’s Trouble, her tentacular thinking is a way of articulating and encouraging biological symbiosis in the current climate crisis.
Ursula’s Tentacles, Multimedia installation and performance, Equinox Light Cure, curated by Sasha Burkhanova-Khabadze, Exposed Arts, London, 2019
Unbothered + Moisturised is an ongoing collaboration with artist SAGG Napoli that brings together artists that are unapologetic in subverting codes of masculinity and femininity that take us into zones of resistance and calls for action. This edition was an evening of performances, presentations, screenings and music hosted by Eaton Workshop during Art Basel Hong Kong.
unbothered, moisturized, in my lane, well-hydrated, flourishing : a call to arms by the feminist hero of today, Cardi B. Following her cry we remain unbothered by the falsities and ridicule spewed by our politicians on the global stage. Instead we stand united in our lanes, in the intersectional fight for all humans who continue to suffer from the aftermath of patriarchal colonial imperialist expansion. We choose to Queer the boarders and boundaries that prevent the flow of people in need. Heeding the advice of Cardi B we invite you to join us in being unbothered and Moisturised in an evening performances, presentations, screenings + music.
Ursula’s tentacles, Unbothered + Moisturised, curated by Zoë Marden & SAGG Napoli, Eaton Workshop, Hong Kong, 2019
Contributing artists : Zadie Xa, Gery Georgieva, Larry B, SAGG Napoli, Ayesha Tan-Jones
teras is a film and performance piece made for the project All in: Bodied, a love letter to the female-identifying body in motion curated by Bryony Stone. The project included a movement performance by Grace Nicol and collaboration with Designer Sinéad O’Dwyer who made wearable silicone sculptures for the performance.
Between Monsters Goddesses and Cyborgs, Rosi Braidotti, describes The mermaid, in her interspecies morphology, as teras – a word from Greek that encompasses both marvel and monster, prodigy and demon, sacred and profane. She has theorised that the otherness of the ‘organic monster’ such as the mermaid, a human/animal hybrid that is positioned in the liminal, the in-between zone. invoked in the discourses of racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other exclusionary schema that seek to segregate undesirables from what allegedly constitutes the ‘pure’ human.
teras, all in bodied, curated by Bryony Stone, Mellissa Gallery, London, 2018
Little Lo Ting is a long term research project, composed of an installation, a performance series, a video work and a series of texts
The Lo Ting is half human, half fish, a creature, a mermaid and the alleged ancestor of the people of Hong Kong. A myth co-oped by curator Oscar Ho in 1997, the year when Hong Kong was returned to China, bringing to end 100 years of British colonial rule. This mythological creature has become a way to re-imagine a future for Hong Kong, to question the multiplicity of history and how it is narrated and created. The figure of the Mermaid appears in stories as a creature that is neither here nor there, neither human nor fish. A gender fluid figure for the queer imagination. I am investigating the mermaid, or the Lo Ting, through the construction of Hong Kong’s speculative future as well as through my family and its entanglement with Hong Kong’s colonial history.
Little Lo Ting, The Royal College of Art Degree show, June 2018
Little Lo Ting, Queertopia, Curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley for Daata Editions & If so What?, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco & Somerset house, Art Night, 2018
Little Lo Ting, Irruptive Chora, The Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London, 2018
The Shaved Witches Rave or TSWR is a research project that took many different forms and manifestations. It explores the history of the persecutions of witches in 16th & 17th century Europe alongside contemporary rave culture. It is a site specific performance and sound piece that took place in carparks, festivals, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and galleries. The project ran from 2016 until 2018.
“Witch hunting was also instrumental to the construction of the new patriarchal order where women bodies, their labour, their sexual and reproductive powers were placed under the control of the state and transformed into economic resources.” Silvia Federici
Hair and lots of it is what weaves this text together; not gathered neatly in a bow but tangled and unruly. Wavy locks carry the text on uneven paths through time, from the European Witch Hunts of the Middle ages all the way through to the present. Long tendrils of hair spill over the pages, collecting stories and memories that explore the socio-political exploitation of the female mind and body. These stories reveal how the lines drawn between the public and private spheres have become slippery within the tentacles of capitalism. Spaces of intimacy have now become tiny islands in a sea of labour, making the personal all the more political. My stories and the stories of the Witches become entangled through writing that oscillates between poetic abstraction and historical contextualisation. The stories of the witches are intertwined in the coils of capitalism; their persecution contributed to capitalism taking root. The witches can be seen as the first wave feminists who were forgotten, their histories shaved off like their hair. Their stories show us how there have always been rebellious women who refuse to conform, and how imperative it is to continue to keep their legacy alive.
TSWR vol. 7 (The Shaved Witches Rave), The New Dark room, Curated by The RCA Queer Society, The Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, London, 2017
TSWR vol. 6 (The Shaved Witches Rave), Il break your heart and you’ll break mine, curated by Sasha Galitzine, Vout-o reenees, London, 2017
TSWR vol. 5 (The Shaved Witches Rave), Mimosa House, curated by Daria Khan, London, 2017
The Shaved Witches Rave vol. 4, Hot Retaliations (and other acts of revenge), Clearview Ldt, London, 2017
The Shaved Witches Rave vol. 3, CAMPerVAN Presents: The Sci-FI Powerverse, Artlicks Weekend, London, 2017
The Shaved Witches Rave vol. 2, Robyn Beech Selected Works, 1979-1987, curated by Vittoria Bonifati, Princes Gate Mews, London, 2017
The Shaved Witches Rave vol. 1, curated by Leanne Elliot-Young for Commune East, Hoi Polloi, London, 2017
Burn the Witch is a sound and movement performance that came out the The Shaved Witches Rave (TSWR) Project.
The Witches of the Middle Ages were women who caused trouble, they were women who refused to conform to societal norms. These women were also an integral part of the fabric of Medieval European societies. The Witch was a healer, a woman who dared to live on her own, a heretic and a disobedient wife. The figure of the Witch has survived centuries of torture both in mind and body yet she is still here standing her ground, warts and all. Her persecution was global; no frontiers were forgotten. Her power was too strong, her flame too bright for the powers that be. The industrialised world tried to erase her influence, but she stayed in the shadows, biding her time.
Burn the Witch, q|Lab, Milan, November 2017
Layers to Luna was a collaboration with Zara Toppins for Manifesta 11 in Zurich. It is made up of a video piece and a performance work. It is an expedition into the emotive effects of the moon cycles, its physical distance yet intimate connection to the earth and its beings. The full moon acts as mirror for the sun, she produces no light of her own the suns rays are projected onto the moon creating its ghostly light.
her ghostly glow captures souls swiftly
pulling us like the tides till we spill blood
the seed is planted in the dark invisible new moon
birthing beginnings have begun
waxing crescent propells actions intact
till the full moon makes us howl
the subtle snaring of the suns light
a luminary that has no light of her own
instead a mirror of of masculine power and radiance
channeling a force so powerfully passive
while she enfolds us softly in her rays
Layers to Luna, Manifesta 11, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, Switzerland, 2016
The Raving ones is a collaborative performance piece that was part of the project POMPE, a Dionysian canal procession, curated by Sasha Galitzine which took place on Regents canal during The Frieze art fair in October 2016.
In Greek mythology, maenads (/ˈmiːnædz/; Ancient Greek: μαϊνάδες were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones”. During the orgiastic rites of Dionysus, maenads roamed the mountains and forests performing frenzied, ecstatic dances and were believed to be possessed by the god. While under his influence they were supposed to have unusual strength, including the ability to tear animals or people to pieces.
The Raving Ones, POMPE, a dionysian canal procession, curated by Sasha Galitzine, Regents Canal, London, 2016
Choreography in collaboration with Carla Piscitelli
Performing with Caley Holmboe, Eniye Kagbala, Clio Marden, Jody Pearcy, Joni Zhu
Costumes by Rachel Schofield Owen
Music by PHRH
Sighs of Sirius is a long term site specific project at the Fitzroy Park allotments curated by Sasha Galitzine over the summer of 2016. I offered up my services as a tarot reader to all of the Fitzroy allotment holders as a way to connect with the natural space and the people who tend to it. Tarot is wonderful tool of self understanding, it allows you to visualise aspects of your life through archetypes, symbols and colours. It is a therapeutic process for myself as well as the person I read for, often revealing or confirming questions you are grappling with, making visible the unseen.
The Star card is the 17th ( XVII) in the major Arcanum it is the card of hope, of fertility showing a balance of all 4 elements surrounding a nude female pouring water from 2 vases. It is the first naked human in the Tarot showing ultimate freedom and connection with the earth. The large star in the centre is the Dog star or Sirius which is the brightest star in Earth’s night sky. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek Σείριος meaning "glowing" or "scorcher". The ancient Greeks observed that the appearance of Sirius heralded the hot and dry summer, and feared that it caused plants to wilt, men to weaken, and women to become aroused. Anyone suffering its effects was said to be astroboletos or "star-struck". It was described as "burning" or "flaming" in literature. The season following the star's heliacal rising came to be known as the Dog Days of summer.
Sighs of Sirius, closer to the veg, curated by GalitzineMackenzie, Fitzroy park Allotments, London, 2016
The Alternative alternative miss world competition was a collaborative project conceived in response to artist Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World competition which began in his flat in Hackney in 1972 and more recently in 2018 at the Globe theatre with past guests, hosts and competitors including everyone from Derek Jarman, David Hockney and Zandra Rhodes to Grayson Perry, Divine, Leigh Bowery and the stars of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Unlike Miss World, anyone could enter, men & women and everyone would be judged on the same criteria as the dog show Crufts: poise, personality and originality.
The Alternative Alternative Miss World competition took place in 2015 in a bunker in Dalston and then at the Moth Club in 2016. We are currently planning the next edition for 2020.
A collection of images of work from 2016 and earlier.