Frizz

I took part in a performance piece on Saturday at Tate Modern “Did you ever want to be someone else?” and this is me with the face of artist Mathieu Briand… I know, I look hideous and scary and just horrible. It was a laugh though, we did the performance in the turbine hall mingling with the visitors. It was fun with the mask on just going up to complete strangers and doing weird things - the mask gave me a wonderful sense of freedom - so it really was like being someone else. The performance was a bit boys own - with pretending to shoot, die, and be captured high on the list - my best bit was dying dramatically; I slid down the wall at speed. There was one part where my group had to stand facing a wall with our hands on our head and wait for instructions, so just as I’m getting tired I have something pointed at my back and I’m told to move… I hadn’t been expecting that and it was quite powerful to suddenly understand the bigger picture - that we must have all looked like we’d been ‘captured’.

Even though we all had the same mask on, it looked different on each person depending on the size and shape of their face, but it did give everyone an angry face and even though I knew it wasn’t how they were feeling, it was really hard to dismiss what I was seeing and my instinctive emotional reaction was to be afraid, that was very interesting to realize just how powerful an instinctive reaction to someones expression I could have. It was quite a relief at the end to be reacquainted  with peoples real faces when the masks came off.