Ugly Duck Bermondsey brings the first ever summer edition of @Disturbance, performance festival. Following the success of previous programmes championing LGBTQIA+ performance, video and digital artists, @Disturbance makes use of Ugly Duck’s Tanner Street location, a former Victorian factory with multiple spaces.
@Distrubance is entirely artist-led and is curated by Deen Atger. Other contributions come courtesy of Lucy Nurnberg who will design the exterior installation, Mahalia Henry-Richards taking care of graphic design, set designer Knives, who has a film background and poet Oduenyi Nwike lending their multifaceted skills to @Disturbance as a key part of the team.
Ugly Duck Creative Director and founder, Dean Atger has set out plans to make this event accessible to all, partnering with disabled-led organisations, to not only live-stream the event for those unable to attend, but also using audio-description, BSL translation and captioning, to enable all viewers to partake in the event. Atger Says: “This year we look forward to seeing our regular, fabulous @Disturbance crowd as well as new audiences discovering our work. We’re partnering with disabled-led organisations Care-fuffle and Shape Arts to embark on a journey around accessibility. All artists will create new work where captioning, audio description and BSL translation will not only be embedded but considered as the work is being created. By employing livestream, projections and other technologies, we aim to explore and learn what accessibility can mean and look like for artists and audiences. Through this edition of @Disturbance we question how to make this an integral part of the show, rather than approaching it as an afterthought, so that we can not only come together but show up for each other as a larger community.”
In the run-up to the festival we chat with one of their participating artists Ace Rahman, who shares more about the festival and the work they are bringing for their audience.
Ace Rahman brings an exciting and unique perspective into the Bengali culture, using both traditional and digital art forms. Their multi-disciplinary work explores the potential to express themes, reaching into ancient history, in a new and stimulating fashion. Rahman toys with sound, graphic design, mask-making and performance, creating a layered expression of his relation to the world and their heritage. Upon being interviewed, Rahman explained a key inspiration: “I explore themes of connections, between people, places, history and ways of seeing life through storytelling and a surrealist lens rooted in various mythological, folkloric and ritualistic traditions.”
As a contemporary artist, their use of masks- originating from tribal rituals or folk dance- creates an interesting intersection between past and present, and highlights the relationship between ancestors and descendants. Rahman explained “There’s something magical about it.”, “I think mask making or ‘Mukosh’ in Bangla, for me is a way to free myself of the constraints of my existence, during a performance for however long it lasts, I become what I represent – how freeing to be something other than yourself even for a short while. To transmute into any shape or form.” In the modern day, Rahman discusses that Bengal traditions are not taught or passed on, it is “Something we are not taught or given but must find in a country and society where we are only taught of our people’s suffering and subjugation. I honour what makes us great. Creativity comes naturally to many of us, it’s just not appreciated or seen as creative because it’s not within white walls on a white cube.”
Rahman breaks artistic conventions, in using performance as a way to dismantle predisposed ideas of what art is and equally using this to extend beyond the limitations of gender, again using their origins as a tool to look beyond the restrictive constructs enforced, today. “I like to tap into aesthetics and ways of expression that pre-date the narrative we have been fed on what a man, woman and anything in between should look like – I look towards historical and contemporary gender expressions within my own culture pre and post-colonialism.”
‘Disturbance’ will be showcasing Rahman’s work, alongside that of four other artists, including Alex Billingham, Samiir Saunders, Kobi Essah Ayensuo and Ella Frost, in a surreal indoor set hosted in a former Victorian factory. This exciting performance space will also extend into an outdoor party, creating the perfect environment for artists and viewers to connect.
As said by Rahman, this is an incredible space “for artists to freely express themselves with each other in a shared space. It is rare to have so much creative freedom and this is what sets @Disturbance apart from other collectives.”
@Disturbance collaborates with artists to create a powerful, unifying and unique demonstration of the creative voice.
About:
Ella Frost
Ella Frost is a London-born filmmaker and visual artist with English and Bajan heritage. Their diverse work covers themes such as family, community, queer nightlife, bi-racial identity, and a fascination with science fiction, nature, and vampires. Through their art, they explores ideas about sex, mortality, and race, primarily working with video and photography, Frost’s talents also extend to digital collaging, ceramics, drawing, and tattooing. Frost co-founded ‘Black Fly Zine,’ a publication dedicated to the experiences of marginalized communities and promoting sexual health. Frost’s innovative and thought-provoking work demonstrates their commitment to community engagement, stretching the boundaries of visual art.
Alex Billingham
@Disturbance presents Alex Billingham, an experimental artist, whose practice is deeply rooted in their identity as a trans, disabled, neurodiverse and queer individual. Their work navigates the intersections of these identities, offering a unique perspective on how they experience the world around them. Their artwork displays incredible visuals, with saturated colours, motifs such as disco balls, eyeballs and large hands, resembling covers of seventies sci-fi books.
Billingham’s approach and use of mediums is fluid. These mediums include video art, installations and sculptures, which they adapt to best suit the ideas they intend to express.
Survival is a fundamental theme in Billingham’s art, where they explore potential futures to find better ways to inspire collective endurance. This exploration is influenced by their personal experiences following a climbing injury, leading to their mobility decreasing and a need to push their physical limits and overcome the struggles they experienced. Billingham explores a specific perspective, exploring how “othered bodies” can relate to the landscape. Alongside this, they also explore themes such as ‘nuclear dread’, considering human fears of particular technology and how this can be used to inspire connections to nature.
Samiir Saunders
Samiir Saunders is a multimedia poet from Birmingham, working in spoken word, alternative hip-hop, and performance art. Their work explores themes such as grind culture, isolation, shame, (mis)communication, intimacy, and the Internet, aiming to inspire curiosity, compassion, and vulnerability in individuals and communities. Saunders’ work has been featured in various prestigious venues and festivals, including Ikon Gallery, Jerwood Space, Channel 4 Random Acts, and BBC Words First.
‘Disturbance’ looks forward to hosting Saunders, in this year’s event, alongside other queer artists in an evocative multidisciplinary show. This environment creates the perfect space for creative minds to interact, providing a unique and powerful experience to all attending.
Kobi Essah Ayensuo
Kobi Essah Ayensuo is a London-based musician and poet, with experience working as a Roundhouse Resident Artist and Barbican Young Poet. Their work aims to challenge perceptions of race, identity, gender and Western colonial narratives in relation to their Ghanaian ancestry and the wider implications of decolonising art and the lens through which it is understood and perceived. With insights into their own experience of queerness and trans identity, Ayensuo’s work provides a moving and intuitive representation of life as an LGBTQIA+ individual, in the modern day.
About Ugly Duck
Last year, Ugly Duck celebrated a decade of revitalising underused buildings and supporting marginalised artists. Established in October 2012, the organisation has transformed a spacious, empty Victorian warehouse in SE1 into a thriving, creative hub. Over 1500 artists and arts collectives have collaborated with Ugly Duck over the past 10 years.
@Disturbance -22 – 23 June, 2024 at Ugly Duck, Bermondsey & Online/ http://uglyduck.org.uk / https://disturbance.info
5pm – 09.30pm / £8 – £15
Feature by Teodora Wollny
Read Teodora’s latest Feature: Writers In Conversation – ‘George’ and ‘Joe Carstairs’ co-headlining Omnibus Theatre’s Queer Festival 96 – runs until 14 July – Abundant Art
