Four performance artists based or born in Birmingham come together in the mud to offer and test new work that responds to the themes of dirty nails (les ongles noirs).
Expect future laments, songs for after the collapse, keening, costumes, fluid flight and transgressive transformation, and consumption as a generative act.
itch. is an experimental scratch performance gathering that puts a spotlight on our shadows. It is a space to stretch, contort and bleed out of the rigid confines of inherited form and genre. itch. aims to lean into the tingling sensation of the unsettling and play within realms we are often too scared to be/sit with.
Content warning: Includes partial nudity. Suitable for Age 18+
ELLE FIERCE (she/they) is a performance and visual artist based in Berlin & London.
Her work speaks to the complexities and nuances within the tropes of Transness, Queerness and Blackness.
ELLE seeks to amplify these underrepresented voices within mainstream discourse and artistic spheres including elements of dance, speech, video work and DJ’ing, blurring the lines between performance experience and audience participation. Approaching performance from an intersectional perspective, she attempts to present alternate possibilities for connection and radical solidarity as an opportunity to explore the interconnectedness of our bodies.
ELLE’s works have been presented at WUK Vienna, Southbank centre London, ADKDW Cologne, Tanz Pavilion Hannover, Molt Gallery Berlin among others and is currently artist in residence at Raze Collective London.
Liz Ord is a performance and costume artist whose work focuses on the surreal. They spent their early career in fashion, methodically playing out make-believe scenarios on and off runways. The fantasies that feed consumption have bled into their current work, which explores the lines, between fabrication and reality; whimsy, fun and fear.
Liz's work has been featured with Fierce Festival, Shout Festival, The MAC, Warwick Arts Centre, and The VNA. Their clothing has been showcased in publications such as Twin Magazine and Re-Edition Magazine, and their designs have been worn on red carpets during London Fashion Week (LFW). Liz has also creatively collaborated with Gucci.
Pablo Pakula is a queer live artist and performance-maker. Halk-Spanish and half-German, he has been living in the UK more than half his live and has been based in Birmingham since 2017. In his work, which often takes ritualised forms, hovers between the poetic to the carnivalesque, between the apotheotic to the derisive, between the holy to the profane. In an attempt to go beyond discursive language, Pablo often uses totemic objects and materials to open up a meditative space for the audience. Although he is not musically trained, he has created a body of work that explores the compositional nature of performance.
Samiir Saunders is a multimedia poet from Birmingham. Samiir’s work blends spoken word, sound art, alternative hip-hop, and performance art. Samiir explores themes of intimacy, technology, glitches, healing, and memory.
Samiir has performed at venues across the UK and internationally, including Ikon Gallery, Jerwood Space, La Gaîté Lyrique, Tramlines Festival, and Supernormal Festival. Samiir’s poetry films have screened at OutFest Los Angeles, Arcadia Gallery, and Channel 4 Random Acts. Their film ‘oneminuteglitches’, which they originally published to Instagram, was featured in the online exhibition ‘A World Without End’ and was a finalist for Best Illustrated Poem at the ‘Wales International Film Festival 2021’.
This event is part of dirty nails (les ongles noirs) which is co-commissioned with
Supported by
