I’m an artist-activist working in performance, film, sound and text, and founder of Roaring Girl Productions (www.roaring-girl.com). Drawn to the power of creative work to trigger change, projects range from confrontational and provocative to much gentler inquiry. My blogging will be on current projects and the questions they raise in the doing.

Tilda, John, Yoko, Tracey, Ron and me

26 March 2013

Blog

In my recent interview about Bedding Out for BBC Ouch!* , I was asked “So is this a sort of John and Yoko for PIP [Personal Independence Payment] or more a sort of Tracey Emin-related activity?” When I began to dream up Bedding Out, I kept bumping into John and Yoko and Tracey and began to wonder how many other have made art based on the bed. Quite a few, it turns out, though not many actually inhabit their beds or convey a sense of their bed as occupied. This week, though, actor...

Comments: 2

Mental gymnastics and TV soundbites

22 March 2013

Blog

Towards the end of last week, I was asked to do an interview this Thursday for regional television news, who are doing a series of reports next week on DLA/PIP, bedroom tax, council tax, etc. I’m under the duvet as I write this, my words slurring, sentences resisting the keyboard; not the best week. I pushed the interview as late in the week as possible, trusting that adrenalin would kick in enough that I can deceive the onlooker. And there is the ‘damned if you do, damned if you...

Comments: 0

Prayers to the Tech Gods

15 March 2013

Blog

Just four weeks to go now until my Bedding Out performance gets underway and the nerves are definitely kicking in. Last week, thanks to the wonders of Skype, I directed the technical fit of the installation from my bed, and technology is looming large in this project in ways I never predicted when it started out. Last autumn, at a previous version of the work, several people got in touch, really excited that it was making them more visible, but unable to attend in person because of their own...

Comments: 0

Reflecting from the Bed

8 March 2013

Blog

My latest project is barrelling its way towards the start line. This week, the brilliant CoQuo, my production team have been at Salisbury Arts Centre putting the finishing touches to my Bedding Out installation that forms part of the People Like You exhibition showing work by Gini, Sue Austion and me, and which  launches tonight (8 March). At the beginning of April, I will be moving body and soul into the exhibition space for 48 hours, but more on that soon… Bedding Out comes...

Comments: 4

Some thoughts on Art as Activism

3 March 2013

Blog

Sometime soon I’m going to embark on a project as light as air, if only for myself, for the sake of my own grey hairs and deepening frown. It will be a project to make me laugh (and maybe other people too), something not even the tiniest bit hardcore. “No more Nazis," I tell myself. It’s just there are still so many Nazis and art is a great way to greet them head on. There are activists who think that art is a diversion from the single-mindedness of a campaign. But...

Comments: 2