selected research, writing
&
works - process*
*excerpt notes
&
works - process*
*excerpt notes
research & writing notes
darkmatters823
residency and curation
supported by Create Inclusion Creative Scotland
research into dark matter with artist
bury h nella
(Ruby Allen)
and (former) physics student
Ellie Wright
audio documentation
Ellie Wright on the search for dark matter
artist in residence sulaiman majali
2021
artist in residence bury h nella
2021
*excerpt
writing in process
*excerpt sonne luí pitza (aka nima aida séne)
notes on ‘The Disordered Cosmos’ by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
_On residency, reading world renound physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein I was suprisingly moved in resonance, as I had expected to not
_understand anything. She wrote that she put everything into studying physics also to escape her story.
_She found out that this was not possible. I started the darkmatters823 research project
_with the intention to create a new installation piece to invite audiences to embrace darkness with low to no lighting and an emphasis on
_sound & smells.
_As the pandemic unfloded I became aware of how much I could not imagine making a performance for a theatre
_and that I yearned to wear one or max 2 hats (working roles) and not any more than this. Making a piece for theatre requires all the hats.
_Which is also what I really love about it. As much as there is collaboration, there is a core vision and practice too.
_Not only did I yearn for one role, my nervous system said you have no choice, you might not even be able to do one.
_I thought I could proceed with failing to grasp more about physics theories and to my suprise found what Ellie Wright had been telling me.
_Scientist are looking to artist as no current ways of measuring work for figuring out dark matter or even gravity -
_as far as I have understood - as an amateur hobby physics reader. Though I also want to escape my story,
_reframing one’s story as something like scientific subjective accuracy in expertise feels strangely liberating.
_I remember laughing out loud when I read Chanda Prescod-Weinstein writing that she did wanted to escape her story - to then hold my breath -
_as she follows on with why there needed to be a chapter about r*pe in her book on science -
_a short scream rang through my vocal chords.
_To be a good scientist, a scientific approach cannot be objective and must be subjective, she writes. Telling her story.
_So I wrote down things you cannot see that have left a gravitational impact. With the premis of potential dark matter particles passing
_through everything. I am trying to find the beauty in them too, whilst finding pain.
_Writing, rewriting, editing, rewriting, rewriting. Wrong and intuitively unintentionally.
_I would love to learn how to write properly and find an editor for this project one day maybe.
_For now I am also experimenting with shapeshifting from second, to third to first person. And letting the events unfold non-liniarly.
_Which also might not be working.
_Drafting as someone who has made work in the performance theatre sector, as a scientist of this life I have lived so far.
_My writing alias name is a genderfluid one, I gave myself at five years old: sonne luí pitza -
_a time where my favourite colour(s) were pink, purple, silver and gold.
works - process*
*selected notes
*selected notes
ani & sumin +
I wrote a script whilst on residency over two-three weeks at NTS, National Theatre of Scotland
in the Glasgow summer of 2017.
My technical intension on residency was to try and write a dialogue of two characters played by one actor.
I managed to get somewhere. Caroline Denise the starring actor came in the day before our first day of shooting.
We planned a two-day shoot. Caroline and I had only had one previous conversation.
I had seen her recite a brilliant improvised poetic performance at a Black History Month celebration
I had organized at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Now we were both graduated.
I had a strong sense Caroline would bring something out of me and she
had a sense that I would make something interesting for her to play.
Caroline read one page of the script, stopped not even at the end of the first page - looked up and said what is this?
This is not you. You are an artist and a poet, bring something different tomorrow.
That was the end of our one rehearsal day. 10 minutes max.
We both knew she did not need any extra time to learn new lines.
I go home delete three weeks of work and write all night.
I write three poems and know Caroline is right.
This at least has some umpf of life in it. These poems that have been with me
for decades wanting to bubble up and be played with poured out of me.
I tell Daniel Hughes who did the photography that I need the setting to be a transitional moment in terms of lighting.
He says dusk or dawn and we both say dusk. He knows the exact times and does everything to get it exactly right.
I ask Daniel if it is possible for ani to walk over into sumin’s screen and he replies with nothing is impossible.
These collaborations were a dream come true for me and helped me rediscover creative expression and directing for video.
in the Glasgow summer of 2017.
My technical intension on residency was to try and write a dialogue of two characters played by one actor.
I managed to get somewhere. Caroline Denise the starring actor came in the day before our first day of shooting.
We planned a two-day shoot. Caroline and I had only had one previous conversation.
I had seen her recite a brilliant improvised poetic performance at a Black History Month celebration
I had organized at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Now we were both graduated.
I had a strong sense Caroline would bring something out of me and she
had a sense that I would make something interesting for her to play.
Caroline read one page of the script, stopped not even at the end of the first page - looked up and said what is this?
This is not you. You are an artist and a poet, bring something different tomorrow.
That was the end of our one rehearsal day. 10 minutes max.
We both knew she did not need any extra time to learn new lines.
I go home delete three weeks of work and write all night.
I write three poems and know Caroline is right.
This at least has some umpf of life in it. These poems that have been with me
for decades wanting to bubble up and be played with poured out of me.
I tell Daniel Hughes who did the photography that I need the setting to be a transitional moment in terms of lighting.
He says dusk or dawn and we both say dusk. He knows the exact times and does everything to get it exactly right.
I ask Daniel if it is possible for ani to walk over into sumin’s screen and he replies with nothing is impossible.
These collaborations were a dream come true for me and helped me rediscover creative expression and directing for video.
B 2 B +
Notes on the first iteration / live performance.
This piece came about through Brownton Abbey who asked me if I wanted to perform a new piece in the same week as premiering
Beige B*tch at Take Me Somewhere festival in Glasgow.
I said that I could not imagine making something new I had so much to do and felt far away spiritually.
Uncertain I could make something inspired by afro-futurism when I had mainly been dealing with whiteness.
Tariq from Brownton Abbey, Marlborough Productions, assured me that I could engage with afrofuturism.
That I could something that would feel good to create, perform and share.
I am so grateful to Tariq and Brownton Abbey for inviting me and giving me this release.
I needed to spiritually catapult out of Beige B*tch which was an exorcism work for me playing
with delusion to the audience that this was enjoyable to perform live.
Most importantly B 2 B gave me community with Brownton Abbey and engaging with sources I found inspirational in embracing darkness.
Sun Ra’s ‘There Is No Sun’ and Jamaica Kincaid’s short story ‘Blackness’.
It was the first time for me to work with covering existing materials and share from a place of abundance, more ease and joy.
And I was able to work with the brilliant costume designer Sabrina Henry again, whose practice I am enthralled by.
As well as with the composer, musician, artist Hannah Catherine Jones
whom I admire greatly.
This piece came about through Brownton Abbey who asked me if I wanted to perform a new piece in the same week as premiering
Beige B*tch at Take Me Somewhere festival in Glasgow.
I said that I could not imagine making something new I had so much to do and felt far away spiritually.
Uncertain I could make something inspired by afro-futurism when I had mainly been dealing with whiteness.
Tariq from Brownton Abbey, Marlborough Productions, assured me that I could engage with afrofuturism.
That I could something that would feel good to create, perform and share.
I am so grateful to Tariq and Brownton Abbey for inviting me and giving me this release.
I needed to spiritually catapult out of Beige B*tch which was an exorcism work for me playing
with delusion to the audience that this was enjoyable to perform live.
Most importantly B 2 B gave me community with Brownton Abbey and engaging with sources I found inspirational in embracing darkness.
Sun Ra’s ‘There Is No Sun’ and Jamaica Kincaid’s short story ‘Blackness’.
It was the first time for me to work with covering existing materials and share from a place of abundance, more ease and joy.
And I was able to work with the brilliant costume designer Sabrina Henry again, whose practice I am enthralled by.
As well as with the composer, musician, artist Hannah Catherine Jones
whom I admire greatly.
“auf den weg zu mir/
auf den weg zu dir” +
Joy Kristin Kalu I met through Pelin Basaran,
Joy asked me why I had not yet created anything in Berlin, my hometown.
I said I do not know where to begin to try and do so.
Joy encouraged me that she thought it would be great for me to do a project in Berlin while
she was still at Sophiensaele and that she could lead with the application writing as
Sophiensaele does this with artists they support.
We proceeded to work together, and Joy and I developed a supportive bond over this time.
I knew I needed to do something that was not a show or a video work.
Something that was about colours and sound like an unfolding poem bathing the audience in the same lights and sound
as the performance space - so we were all in the same world. I knew I needed this to feel healing.
And that the piece needed to be a commemoration to those who had taken their own lives,
to make a ritual that was full of colours and light to commemorate them.
The pandemic was still going on there were many restrictions.
When we received the confirmation of the Senat funding, I was in Berlin not knowing how to get started with whom to work.
I knew I needed a strong lighting designer and a great composer and a performer who was working spiritually with their ancestors.
I got in touch with Céline Rodriguez who I found online.
Céline after a few minutes of me introducing the project knew exactly who to contact and was utterly right about this.
The search was therefore not long at all. We had initial meetings before the intensive rehearsal weeks.
Virginnia Krämer the performer was so in touch with where she was at it was such a joy to work with her
and have her child at some of the rehearsals. It was important for me to explore directing-devising
from a perspective of working with a performer who is a mother and if I could hold such a space too.
I encouraged Sea Novaa the composer and Raquel Rosildete the lighting designer to go more boldly and
take up space and not hold back as I envisioned there to be 3 main characters in this installation, sound, light, performance.
Sea was on board with a stunning soundscape of each colour of the rainbow and Raquel designed and operated
the lights like painting the room, the Hochzeitssaal was transformed.
The exact right lights we needed for this which Agnieszka Habrashka generously made possible through Sophiensaele
as well as stepping in to produce this work.
I knew I wanted the audience to be in a sound and light bath,
especially as it was February when the gatherings /
shows were at limited capacity and covid tests and masks were mandatory.
To my surprise we sold out every night with waiting lists and the feedback was wonderful,
we had created something memorable. A friend of May Ayim’s came on the BIPoC only night on the 14th of Februrary 2022 and said
they felt May would have loved this.
My father came on another night and prayed most of the time, maybe for my uncle whom he had lost
before I was born to unaliving.
Kondo and Trovi came unplanned on the same night.
I saw friends I had not seen for years, and this felt like a home coming for my practice.
I had injured by knee and could not walk properly for a month during this process and everything still came together at its best.
It was a challenge for me to let go of storytelling through text and performance.
Working with Virginnia made me understand what it truly meant to try and hold a nurturing process,
something I was still learning.
We found in rehearsals that movement was going to be the main language -
the story was in the unsaid.
Valery Renay helped us immensely to develop this.
What was said would be sparse and this was just right.
Joy asked me why I had not yet created anything in Berlin, my hometown.
I said I do not know where to begin to try and do so.
Joy encouraged me that she thought it would be great for me to do a project in Berlin while
she was still at Sophiensaele and that she could lead with the application writing as
Sophiensaele does this with artists they support.
We proceeded to work together, and Joy and I developed a supportive bond over this time.
I knew I needed to do something that was not a show or a video work.
Something that was about colours and sound like an unfolding poem bathing the audience in the same lights and sound
as the performance space - so we were all in the same world. I knew I needed this to feel healing.
And that the piece needed to be a commemoration to those who had taken their own lives,
to make a ritual that was full of colours and light to commemorate them.
The pandemic was still going on there were many restrictions.
When we received the confirmation of the Senat funding, I was in Berlin not knowing how to get started with whom to work.
I knew I needed a strong lighting designer and a great composer and a performer who was working spiritually with their ancestors.
I got in touch with Céline Rodriguez who I found online.
Céline after a few minutes of me introducing the project knew exactly who to contact and was utterly right about this.
The search was therefore not long at all. We had initial meetings before the intensive rehearsal weeks.
Virginnia Krämer the performer was so in touch with where she was at it was such a joy to work with her
and have her child at some of the rehearsals. It was important for me to explore directing-devising
from a perspective of working with a performer who is a mother and if I could hold such a space too.
I encouraged Sea Novaa the composer and Raquel Rosildete the lighting designer to go more boldly and
take up space and not hold back as I envisioned there to be 3 main characters in this installation, sound, light, performance.
Sea was on board with a stunning soundscape of each colour of the rainbow and Raquel designed and operated
the lights like painting the room, the Hochzeitssaal was transformed.
The exact right lights we needed for this which Agnieszka Habrashka generously made possible through Sophiensaele
as well as stepping in to produce this work.
I knew I wanted the audience to be in a sound and light bath,
especially as it was February when the gatherings /
shows were at limited capacity and covid tests and masks were mandatory.
To my surprise we sold out every night with waiting lists and the feedback was wonderful,
we had created something memorable. A friend of May Ayim’s came on the BIPoC only night on the 14th of Februrary 2022 and said
they felt May would have loved this.
My father came on another night and prayed most of the time, maybe for my uncle whom he had lost
before I was born to unaliving.
Kondo and Trovi came unplanned on the same night.
I saw friends I had not seen for years, and this felt like a home coming for my practice.
I had injured by knee and could not walk properly for a month during this process and everything still came together at its best.
It was a challenge for me to let go of storytelling through text and performance.
Working with Virginnia made me understand what it truly meant to try and hold a nurturing process,
something I was still learning.
We found in rehearsals that movement was going to be the main language -
the story was in the unsaid.
Valery Renay helped us immensely to develop this.
What was said would be sparse and this was just right.
Dear Europe
/
moving through shadows +
I received a request for a call with the National Theatre of Scotland in November 2018 asking me
if I could accept Adura Onashile’s request for me to be her maternity cover for the one off Dear Europe project.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I was to start the next day with a meeting.
I was immediately on board and honoured that having only worked with Adura once beforehand that I would be trust with this.
Of course I took the subject very seriously as a European in the UK, the pre-Brexit time also felt insane for everybody.
I felt sincere about Adura Onashile’s concept, of the theme being to focus on Poland and find a Black experience there.
I remember having a phone call and asking her, how can I do this? And Adura said trust your instincts and go there,
where you know you need to go. Be bold. And remember that there are Black people everywhere even if
a society does not show you where.
So I just go to a museum and ask where the Black people are? I ask.
Yes, for example. Adura replies. We laugh, knowingly.
I knew I wanted to make a 3 channel video work surrounding an audience
for their heads to swivel and the screens to be alive like three performers in and out of time.
I felt that Daniel Hughes
would know how to do this and have ideas as well of how to edit and be a collaborating co-researcher on this project,
so I invited him to join in.
Then I got in touch with the Song of the Goat Theatre with whom I had taken a workshop in London
a couple years earlier and asked if they knew of anyone,
they immediately responded with Ifi Ude.
Till this day I am a fan of Ifi Ude’s music and I feel so lucky to have gotten to know her
through this project that left us with a deeper bond.
Ifi immediately said, well you must come here to Warsaw if you want to know about my experience.
Daniel and I knew we would be over working and under paying ourselves and we were both up for this.
The subject and project was this exciting for us.
And in the face of Brexit it felt like crossing these made up and violent borders
was exactly what was the right thing to do for this process.
So we dove in head first into a 4 month process, both somehow securing other jobs to make ends meet during and after the project.
I knew when we got to Warsaw that I just needed to follow Adura’s guidance.
To center Ifi’s story and spend most of our time with her and to also see what else we could find.
It seemed the place to go was the Uprising Museum and ask if they knew of any Black Polish people in history.
Ifi told us she would not be joining as this museum had become a symbol for the far-right government that was in power at this time.
The resistance was growing and we felt the tension in the air and saw a pride flag scupture had been burned in a main square.
Daniel and I were uncertain if we should still go to the museum - we decided to try.
As we enter I feel more and sure that I can ask an usher there and I do. To our surprise the search was quickly accomplished.
The usher says that there is one man working there who knows everything and is obsessed with archiving stories of the past.
He brings us to him, and he tells us all about August Agbola O’Browne. We are all delighted with excitement. The usher seems confused.
Later through Dominika’s translation we find out the historian had used a derogatory term for Agbola during the interview which is why
I will not mention the historians name here.
At the end of the interview he switches to English meeting me in more than half way.
I ask why
August Agbola O’Browne was not anywhere to be found in the museum?
He does not have an answer and instead asks back.
You came all the way from Scotland to ask this?
Yes, I reply. Firmly. And laugh.
Daniel and I smile at each other and he nods to me with reassurance while filming.
I call Adura that day and say guess that there was a Nigerian Jazz player who volunteered to fight in the Warsaw Uprising.
Adura replies with, brilliant, keep going with this.
And laughs saying of course you will find us Nigerians everywhere.
After the project ends about a year later we find there is a statue of August Agbola O’Browne by the museum.
And who knows maybe we contributed to this a little bit.
Working with Daniel as a collaborator on this project was monumental and I cherish the experiences and process we had.
if I could accept Adura Onashile’s request for me to be her maternity cover for the one off Dear Europe project.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I was to start the next day with a meeting.
I was immediately on board and honoured that having only worked with Adura once beforehand that I would be trust with this.
Of course I took the subject very seriously as a European in the UK, the pre-Brexit time also felt insane for everybody.
I felt sincere about Adura Onashile’s concept, of the theme being to focus on Poland and find a Black experience there.
I remember having a phone call and asking her, how can I do this? And Adura said trust your instincts and go there,
where you know you need to go. Be bold. And remember that there are Black people everywhere even if
a society does not show you where.
So I just go to a museum and ask where the Black people are? I ask.
Yes, for example. Adura replies. We laugh, knowingly.
I knew I wanted to make a 3 channel video work surrounding an audience
for their heads to swivel and the screens to be alive like three performers in and out of time.
I felt that Daniel Hughes
would know how to do this and have ideas as well of how to edit and be a collaborating co-researcher on this project,
so I invited him to join in.
Then I got in touch with the Song of the Goat Theatre with whom I had taken a workshop in London
a couple years earlier and asked if they knew of anyone,
they immediately responded with Ifi Ude.
Till this day I am a fan of Ifi Ude’s music and I feel so lucky to have gotten to know her
through this project that left us with a deeper bond.
Ifi immediately said, well you must come here to Warsaw if you want to know about my experience.
Daniel and I knew we would be over working and under paying ourselves and we were both up for this.
The subject and project was this exciting for us.
And in the face of Brexit it felt like crossing these made up and violent borders
was exactly what was the right thing to do for this process.
So we dove in head first into a 4 month process, both somehow securing other jobs to make ends meet during and after the project.
I knew when we got to Warsaw that I just needed to follow Adura’s guidance.
To center Ifi’s story and spend most of our time with her and to also see what else we could find.
It seemed the place to go was the Uprising Museum and ask if they knew of any Black Polish people in history.
Ifi told us she would not be joining as this museum had become a symbol for the far-right government that was in power at this time.
The resistance was growing and we felt the tension in the air and saw a pride flag scupture had been burned in a main square.
Daniel and I were uncertain if we should still go to the museum - we decided to try.
As we enter I feel more and sure that I can ask an usher there and I do. To our surprise the search was quickly accomplished.
The usher says that there is one man working there who knows everything and is obsessed with archiving stories of the past.
He brings us to him, and he tells us all about August Agbola O’Browne. We are all delighted with excitement. The usher seems confused.
Later through Dominika’s translation we find out the historian had used a derogatory term for Agbola during the interview which is why
I will not mention the historians name here.
At the end of the interview he switches to English meeting me in more than half way.
I ask why
August Agbola O’Browne was not anywhere to be found in the museum?
He does not have an answer and instead asks back.
You came all the way from Scotland to ask this?
Yes, I reply. Firmly. And laugh.
Daniel and I smile at each other and he nods to me with reassurance while filming.
I call Adura that day and say guess that there was a Nigerian Jazz player who volunteered to fight in the Warsaw Uprising.
Adura replies with, brilliant, keep going with this.
And laughs saying of course you will find us Nigerians everywhere.
After the project ends about a year later we find there is a statue of August Agbola O’Browne by the museum.
And who knows maybe we contributed to this a little bit.
Working with Daniel as a collaborator on this project was monumental and I cherish the experiences and process we had.
BEIGE B*TCH +
This project was an exorcism from the seed idea starting in 2013,
until iterations and developements from 2016 - 2020.
If you made it this far on the website thank you for your interest.
If you would like to read a snippet of the Beige B*tch process,
please see my writing in process excerpt above and click through the slide show until
you find the heading *beige b*tch
until iterations and developements from 2016 - 2020.
If you made it this far on the website thank you for your interest.
If you would like to read a snippet of the Beige B*tch process,
please see my writing in process excerpt above and click through the slide show until
you find the heading *beige b*tch