Rave Time                                                                                                                                      2023

Rave Time is video exploration of ecstatic and embodied learning, alternative spaces it happens in and how hard it can feel to hold onto.​

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Combining footage documenting a disused, overgrown playground attached to a closed down community centre about (now demolished to build luxury housing), an experimental artist residency I led with young artists exploring embodied ways of collaborating, plus the annual queer protest party ‘This Is My Culture’ in Hampstead Heath cruising grounds inspired by George Michael’s famous words “Are you gay? No? Then fuck off! This is my culture!” I used footage from my own life to explore the affective quality of fizzy spaces that are co created temporarily with other people. 

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Thinking about what kinds of playful and queer knowledges are able to grow and spread in these conditions, and what kind of collective tuning in goes on through sweating, trying to move and live together in a different form of time - against forces of erasure and displacement.

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The work plays with sound and tone as well as closed captions interrupted by parts of a poem, adding another quiet layer to the colliding combinations of footage.

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Footage made partially at UKNA with Sophie Mak Schram for emerging artists (Zara Sands, Sunny Vowles, Niamh Seana, Luke Beech & Courtney Roberts) using tools made with Kerri Jefferis, plus the annual queer protest party ‘This Is My Culture’.

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Shown as part of Gentle Gestures stream at London Conference for Critical Thought 2023, accompanied by a workshop. Screened at Southwark Park Galleries Open 2024.