Counting Stars
Counting Stars
Original text written for ‘London Stories: Made by Migrants’ performance at Battersea Arts Centre in 2016
Tales, Mimicries & Mythologies
Live performance from Tales, Mimicries & Mythologies exhibition at the Stanley Picker Gallery, February 2019
Counting Stars is a multidisciplinary body of work, comprising of live and video performances, as well as props arranged into a site-specific installation for the ‘Tales, Mimicries & Mythologies’ group exhibition at the Stanley Picker Gallery ( Feb. 19).
Borrowing objects from everyday life associated with cleaning - inspired by the washing basin on site - Counting Stars expresses the concerns of an EU migrant living in a post EU referendum Britain, who also identifies as a genderqueer individual. Will there be any implications to life as we know it? Will the rights of those in need of safeguarding be guaranteed?
When Antonis Sideras puts on a ‘Brexit Christmas tree’ dress made out of felt and tinsel, they portray a parody of a blissfully ignorant ‘Lady Youropa’, who is about to be confronted by shocking news. Sideras’ experiments with video performance and a trash x camp aesthetic, satirise Europe’s response following the results of the EU referendum.
Site-responsive installation at the Bentall Centre
The continuation of ‘Counting Stars’ came about via an invitation to create site-responsive works for an empty store space at the Bentall Centre in Kingston upon Thames, taken up by Kingston School of Art and re branded as ‘The Lab’.
The cleaning objects used at the Stanley Picker Gallery gave way to costume used for the performance – including Lady Youropa’s dress - displayed on hangers and folded up in a way referencing the visual language of retail displays. The garments were arranged alongside other textiles inside the two dressing rooms: An ultraviolet blue crushed velvet fabric was draped underneath Lady Youropa’s dress, whilst the text from ‘London Stories’ sat atop a blue sweatshirt resting on a crown of yellow stars in the dressing room next door.
Works presented at ‘Shhh...’ art exhibition in April 2019.
