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letterboxd · 4 years

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Pride: 25 Queer Films To Love.

Dating Amber writer and director David Freyne introduces our London correspondent Ella Kemp to 25 of his favorite LGBTQIA films.

A coming-out, coming-of-age film, David Freyne’s Dating Amber follows “baby gays” Eddie (Fionn O’Shea) and Amber (Lola Petticrew), who act as each other’s beards in order to stop speculation about their sexualities. Released on Amazon Prime Video in the UK for Pride month, it’s winning praise from Letterboxd members as a “charming” and “gentle” comedy-drama “full of loveliness that extends beyond the Irish accents”.

Lola Petticrew and Fionn O’Shea as Amber and Eddie in ‘Dating Amber’.

As the number of films by and about the gay and trans community expands, we asked Freyne if he could narrow down a list of ten favorites for us. The answer was no—instead, we got 25!

“There are so many extraordinary queer films beyond this list, but all of these films just really affected me when I saw them. Some were the first time I saw queerness on screen, while I deeply identified with others. And, as a filmmaker, each of them makes me braver to fight to tell stories that aren't always easy to get made.

“They are in no particular order because I don’t want to bump into Barry Jenkins (which is obviously going to happen) and have to explain that he is number five on that list (that he will definitely read) for no specific reason. It’s just a technicality.”

David Freyne’s 25 Favorite LGBTQIA+ Films

My Summer of Love (2004) Directed by Paweł Pawlikowski

Paweł Pawlikowski’s film feels like a dream that sweeps you up along with it, helped along by incredible early performances from Natalie Press and Emily Blunt. The hypnotic use of Goldfrapp's ‘Lovely Head’ is probably my favorite use of a song in any film ever. Their drug-fuelled dancing was a massive inspiration for Eddie and Amber’s baby steps into Dublin’s gay scene in Dating Amber.

Weekend (2011) Directed by Andrew Haigh

I never fail to cry buckets at the end of this heartbreaking gem. It’s small in the best sense of the word. Two people fall in love over one intimate weekend. Their gayness is both incidental and totally fundamental. It’s so delicate and moving. Andrew Haigh is a master.

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) Directed by Jamie Babbit

Jamie Babbit’s debut is a brilliant, campy comedy about a cheerleader sent to a conversion therapy camp. I love it for all the reasons many critics (at the time) disliked it. It is subversive, quirky and defiantly upbeat. And it stars Natasha Lyonne and Clea Duvall. Enough said.

Paris is Burning (1990) Directed by Jennie Livingston

I’m not saying anything new when I say that Paris is Burning is necessary viewing. It’s a hilarious, moving and eye-opening look at the (mostly) Black trans women in New York’s ball scene. It is a glimpse into the lives of these extraordinary people who risked everything to live authentically, for themselves and each other. And at a time when our trans family is so under attack, it is vital to see such iconic figures from our community. You’ve probably seen it. Re-watch it. Also those end notes will make you cry.

Happy Together (1997) Directed by Wong Kar-wai

As with all Wong Kar-wai’s work, it is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. It’s a tough watch, a portrait of a toxic, failing relationship. But it looks beautiful. They’re miserable and co-dependent. It’s abusive and awful. But it’s great. It really is a great film. I’m not selling this one well. Just watch it.

Moonlight (2016) Directed by Barry Jenkins

Definitely worth watching after Happy Together. Not just because it will make you feel better, but because Barry Jenkins has noted it as a big influence. Also, Moonlight is a masterpiece. You know that, of course. Side note: I realize I’ll never be able to create a hand-job scene as powerful and tender as Jenkins did here, but, in Dating Amber, I made three comedy hand-jobs. Take that Jenkins!

God’s Own Country (2017) Directed by Francis Lee

You can feel Francis Lee in every frame of this film. It’s personal filmmaking at its very best, with wonderful performances from Josh O’Connor and Alec Secăreanu. And it has the most beautifully romantic ending that you only realize we lack for LGBTQ characters when you see it laid out so wonderfully. When we were trying to finance Dating Amber and people suggested it was too Irish, I’d just reference God’s Own Country, which is so defiantly Yorkshire, and they’d shut up. Also, Secăreanu’s jumper with a thumb hole is my style icon. Bring on Ammonite!

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) Directed by Marielle Heller

Marielle Heller is such a brilliant filmmaker. This film is based on the memoir by Lee Israel who forged letters by famous people to sell. It’s a genre piece that feels like it could have been made in the 70s. But what I love about it the most is that it is a rare example of a film that centers the friendship between a lesbian and a gay man. Why do films usually treat us like we exist in totally separate worlds? Anyway, it’s a joyous watch.

Tangerine (2015) Directed by Sean Baker

I’m obsessed with tightly plotted films and Tangerine doesn’t waste a frame. It’s 88 minutes of pure wit, charm and entertainment in line with the best of old-school Hollywood. You instantly forget that Baker’s film is shot on an iPhone and just get swept up in the extraordinary performances of Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. It’s such a mystery they don’t work more. (Reader: it’s not a mystery. It’s because they are Black trans women, and the industry is shit.)

Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019) Directed by Céline Sciamma

We all bow at the alter of Céline Sciamma. This film is perfection. The sparse-but-powerful use of music, exquisite photography and extraordinary performances that burn beneath the stillness. The final shots of Adèle Haenel will feed your soul for a year. (Side note: face masks have never looked so stylish.)

Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Directed by John Schlesinger

This was John Schlesinger’s follow up to his best-known film, Midnight Cowboy. A middle-aged gay doctor (Peter Finch), and a divorced woman (Glenda Jackson), are both in an open love triangle with a younger, bisexual sculptor (Murray Head). It’s quite low-key and far tamer now than when it was released, but it’s a beautiful film and Schlesinger’s most personal. He was one of the few openly gay directors of his time. And Jackson’s performance steals it.

Far From Heaven (2002) Directed by Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes’ stunning film will make you immediately go out and discover all of Douglas Sirk’s glorious technicolor melodramas. Julianne Moore’s performance as a wife who discovers her husband is gay will break you. Dennis Quaid is also terrific as her closeted husband.

The Watermelon Woman (1996) Directed by Cheryl Dunye

Cheryl Dunye’s low-budget debut is a seminal queer film. A video store worker and documentarian (played by Dunye) starts a new relationship while becoming obsessed with ‘the watermelon woman’, a Black actress forgotten by history. It’s lo-fi, funny and a, far too rare, film about race and sexuality.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) Directed by Stephen Frears

It may have been the first time I saw gay characters on screen and, at the time, it petrified me. But what an amazing film about love, acceptance and the power to change. Fun fact: Daniel Day-Lewis spent a year as a tumble dryer in preparation for his role.

Beautiful Thing (1996) Directed by Hettie MacDonald

Hettie MacDonald’s coming-of-age film is so lovely, honest and tender. James Harvey adapted it from his own play of the same name. The soundtrack is almost entirely The Mamas and the Papas. I am surprised some cigar-smoking West-End mogul hasn’t attempted a musical adaptation. Or maybe they have, I don’t know.

Pride (2014) Directed by Matthew Warchus

Such a purely entertaining film while being urgent, political and deeply moving. Beresford’s script is a masterclass in plotting and if you don’t cry at the end then you are dead inside. Sorry but that’s just science. Also it has the most emotional postscript coda since, well, Paris is Burning.

Love is Strange (2014) Directed by Ira Sachs

Ira Sachs is one of my favorite current filmmakers and criminally underrated. I mean, he’s appreciated, but he needs to be lauded. Love is Strange is such a charming and quietly devastating love story about an older gay couple who lose their apartment and have to couch surf with relatives. It’s one of the most effective films in dealing with the rental crisis in big cities, something he does equally brilliantly in the follow-up, Little Men.

A Fantastic Woman (2017) Directed by Sebastián Lelio

Sebastián Lelio’s film is a beautiful story about one trans woman’s grief after the unexpected death of her older partner. But what makes this film so spectacular is the captivating performance by Daniela Vega. We need to see more of her on screen.

BPM (Beats per Minute) (2017) Directed by Robin Campillo

It’s a film about the AIDS activism of Act Up in 1990s Paris. What makes this so incredible is how joyous it is. Strobe-doused dance scenes punctuate this film that will make you want to take to the streets and fight for your rights.

The Queen of Ireland (2015) Directed by Conor Horgan

This documentary by Conor Horgan follows Ireland’s most famous drag queen, Panti Bliss (aka Rory O’Neill). It’s about his life, a legal battle (a bunch of homophobes sued Rory for calling them homophobes on national TV) and the staging of a show in his hometown. Central to all this is Ireland’s historic vote on marriage equality, something that Panti was a powerful figure in. If you want to laugh and have your heart soar in seeing confirmation of how a once painfully conservative country moved to love and equality, watch this.

The Kids Are All Right (2010) Directed by Lisa Cholodenko

Lisa Cholodenko’s feature is a warm, witty and realistic look at a lesbian couple and their children. Every performance is pitch perfect. I can’t believe it’s a decade old and that we have had so few similar films since.

Booksmart (2019) Directed by Olivia Wilde

We need more joyous films with queer leads and Olivia Wilde’s debut is just that. Set over one night of belated partying, we follow best friends Molly and Amy (Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever), one of whom happens to be a lesbian. It is just so much fun to watch.

All About My Mother (1999) Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

I mean this list could just be an Almodóvar filmography, but All About My Mother just happened to be the first of his I saw and it blew my little gay mind. It’s simply about love in its truest sense. Almodóvar said it best with his dedication, “To all actresses who have played actresses. To all women who act. To men who act and become women. To all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother.”

Female Trouble (1974) Directed by John Waters

You can’t have a queer film list without John Waters, and this 1974 classic is my favorite of his. It follows Dawn Davenport (played by the legendary Divine) from teen delinquent to the electric chair. It’s hilarious, irreverent and distasteful in the ways only Waters can be.

Saint Maud (2019) Directed by Rose Glass

Rose Glass’s debut film isn’t out yet and so technically shouldn’t be on the list. But I saw at a festival last year and loved it, so there. It’s a horror film about a private nurse (rising star Morfydd Clark) who tries to save the soul of her deviant and lesbian patient (the always-brilliant Jennifer Ehle). It’s eerie, stylish and the sort of debut all us filmmakers wish we had. Shut up, you’re jealous!

Related content

MundoF’s Opening the Vault: a chronological history of queer interest and LGBTQ+ cinema.

Leonora’s list of Films by Transgender Writers and Directors.

Out of the Closets and Into the Cinemas!: meeting queer folks in dark rooms.

New Queer Cinema

Queer Films Everyone Must See

Queer, Black, 21st Century: A Pride 2020 List

Autostraddle’s Top 200 Lesbian, Bisexual & Queer Movies of All Time

Brianna’s list of LGBT+ Animation

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barbecuedphoenix · 7 years

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200 Followers: 11 Things About Me

So I was re-tagged a week ago by @eldarya-scenarios. (I had no idea I tagged you twice, dear. ^_^ Having two aliases is awfully sneaky.)

If you’re a little curious on who your friendly fan blogger is behind the Leiftan icon and the barrage of text-winks, feel free to read on. Watch out though: it’s a long post like everything else I write...

And if not, please continue to enjoy this blog’s smart-assery and the text-winks. ;)

1) Why did you name your blog the way you did? ...Because that’s the screen-name I use for my main Eldarya account. I’m not very creative with names. :( Not to mention that it’s probably very politically-incorrect to say ‘Barbecued Phoenix’ in the faery realm. Huang Hua would not be amused. And my blog is guaranteed to be politically-incorrect as far as folklore and faeries are concerned. ;) My screen-name is actually homage to a Neil Gaiman short-story called ‘Sunbird’, which is still one of my favorites from its double serving of dark humor and culinary catastrophes. And it sounds really funny when you say it out-loud (at least that’s my opinion).

2) What was your last meal? *checks bowl next to laptop* Eh… a fruit salad I scraped together from some Rainier cherries and leftover cantaloupe slices. It’s summer here, and I enjoy my fruits. :)

3) Jeans or skirts? …I must have at least nine different pairs of jeans in my closet, half of which I don’t even wear most days. And just one pencil skirt. Because at least once in my life, I’ll need to go to a court room. So there’s your answer. :)

4) What’s your favourite letter of the alphabet? In the English alphabet, ‘L’ is my favorite. It just rollllls off the tongue so nicely. :)

5) Favourite fandom/shipping? I’m a mercenary crack-ship writer. Anything goes so long as characters are in-character. ;) *cough* Truthfully, I haven’t shipped anything in a fandom since I was eleven or twelve, and that was waaaay back when the cartoon series Avatar the Last Airbender premiered. I think that experience has inoculated me to serious shipping. So now, while I enjoy seeing a well-developed, well-paced canon romance (because it means the creators have really thought the story through), it’s never a huge concern for me who’s paired up with whom. Romance isn’t actually the selling point for me for a lot of stories; it’s individual character development and plot direction that counts. And anyway… fan shipping is really a fabrication. With a bit of imagination, effort, and tactical writing, functional relationships can be spun between anything and anyone, and unraveled in the same way. Even when keeping all parties in character. So why blow a gasket over shipping? To each their own dirty little fancies. ;)

As for my fandoms… they’re a patchwork quilt of games, books, movies, TV shows, anime from a lot of different sources, and it changes every year. For the sake of time, I’ll give a rundown of just the fantasy/supernatural genres I’ve been following for a while (translating some of the titles to English when possible):

Games: the Dragon Age series, Folklore (also called FolksSoul), Uncharted, the Persona series

Books: Discworld, His Dark Materials, the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, the Temeraire series, The Tiger’s Wife, Brisingamen, pretty much anything done by Neil Gaiman… the list goes on. With a few rare exceptions, I’ve shifted from being a high fantasy lover (those tropes get old after a while) to an acolyte of more low-key genres like magical-realism, fantasy-historical-fiction, and satirical-fantasy.

TV Shows: Supernatural

Anime & Cartoons: the Fate series (even though my fanfiction ends up making fun of it 95% of the time, it’s still a really intricate universe), the Avatar series

Movies: Practically anything done by Studio Ghibli and Tomm Moore, ‘Coraline’, ‘Corpse Bride’, ‘Therapy for a Vampire’, ‘Let the Right One In’, ‘Groundhog Day’, the very first installation of ‘The Hobbit’

6) What’s your favourite sport? (You don’t necessarily have to play it) Favorite sport I can’t do, but love to watch: Surfing. Forget berserk football matches; give me a crazy Australian riding a tunnel wave any day. :D Favorite sport I can do: Bicycling. I’m no Tour de France candidate, but my bike regularly takes its share of unreasonable hills and descents in the city where I live. Personally, It’s a great way to get around. ^_^

7) What’s your idea of a perfect day? Getting everything on my list done with minimal coffee and hair-pulling. -_- Sorry… I’m still listening to the robot half of my brain. Switching over. Start the day by making a difference and sharing a good time with both the students I see where I work, and the odd friends and colleagues I do have. Attend a really good lecture. Then take a quiet bus ride to the beach or an aquarium, where I can watch all the wildlife shenanigans I want. Tourists included. Cook something awesome for lunch or dinner, and eat it to discover that it’s still more awesome. End the day with a good book, an avalanche of blankets, and a conveniently-rainy night. And maybe a quick Skype/phone call with my dad. ;( Oh there I go, listening to the sappy half of my brain. Switching over.

8) What animal do you hate with all your soul? The logical part of my brain tells me I have no cause to loathe any animal for existing. But the cave-woman part of my brain still gets creeped out by a few of them…. Geckos especially. Because the house where I grew up was infested with them (like a typical equatorial house, actually). The geckos could be found on absolutely any flat surface, even the underside of the table and on the ceiling, so we always had to check right before sitting down that something cold, bug-eyed, and squirmy wasn’t going to drop on us in the middle of dinner. And they also liked to appear in other surprising places: like in your shoes (as my father found out one day while rushing to work), inside drawers, inside trash cans, crushed between door hinges, trapped in the kitchen sink, and inside the refrigerator a couple of times (worst idea ever, for a lizard). One of the best things that happened to me on moving to this corner of the United States: no geckos anywhere. I can clean my apartment with an easy heart. \o/

9) Can you dance? Besides some lingering muscle memory from my early days doing classical ballet... no. :( I’d really like to take up Spanish Flamenco though. Generally, I do better with choreographed dances rather than impromptu club-dancing. As all my friends have told me. I’ve given them so many priceless memories on the dance-floor…

10) What’s the name and age of your favourite character? (OC or otherwise) I can’t decide on a ‘favorite’ character in media; there’s too many of them. So how about a favorite OC instead? ^_^ Right now among the Eldarya OC cast, my favorite would have to be Zephania ‘Zee’ Tantiango because she’s a magnet for trouble as a protagonist very dynamic heroine to work with. (She’s 23, in case you’re interested.) Zee is actually the latest incarnation of the ‘funny-but-unlucky action heroine’ archetype I’ve spent years working on, and I’m happy with how she’s turning out so far. On one hand, she’s the typical small-town heroine who’s sharp, plucky, energetic, and more than a little kooky herself; the story never stops moving once she starts improvising in a tight situation. :) But there’s a strong undercurrent of tragedy in the way she continues to isolate herself through her pride and her decisions, especially because she’s allergic to either admitting that she’s in real trouble, or cutting herself some slack for her mistakes. There’s a lot of sadness behind that finger-snap smile. I’m still debating on whether to give her a good ending, or a bitter one. :( No, that was not a spoiler for the fan-fiction that’ll one day hit this blog.

11) What got you into your favourite activity?(i.e how did you start?) Favorite activity? Like… a hobby? Well the longest-running hobby I’ve ever had is writing (no guesses there). And it was more-or-less self-taught. As a kid, nobody could take me anywhere without a book in my hand, or some other adventure happening inside my own head (which made it awfully inconvenient to get my attention in a mall… but hey, I never wandered off). And writing short stories was always the most entertaining school assignment for me. But it wasn’t until I started home-schooling at thirteen that I found the time and need to write something for myself, putting to paper those increasingly-complex sagas and fan-fictions that lived in my head (because my short-term recall just couldn’t keep track of all the dialogue and plot twists anymore; I needed to start recording my stories to make sense of them.) And I haven’t stopped since. :)

Uh-oh. Here come… my questions. For @mentacomchocolate, @areyntheheartseeker, and @the-irish-hoor.

Why did you name your blogs the way you did? ;)

What would your honest personal reaction be if you accidentally stepped into a fairy ring, landed in a strange place, and got threatened by a fox-lady wielding fireballs?

What’s your dream job in this life?

Is there anyone you have a crush on that you’re still really embarrassed to admit? Would you like to mention them anyway? ;)

If there’s only one book genre you could spend the rest of your life reading, what will it be?

What are the top 5 things you geek out over? (Today, at least. ;) )

If you’ve been given a 24-hour advance warning that the world is definitely going to end (i.e. via Death Star), what will you do?

And if you’ve been given an exclusive two-person escape pod during above scenario, what/who would you bring with you to escape the planet? Would you want to?

If your friends can agree on one thing about you, what would it be? Do you agree with them?

What’s the most embarrassing thing that happened to you this past week?

What do you remember as your most incredible feat of endurance to date? Physical, mental, and/or social?

*looks up* ...All right, those are some weird questions. I won’t blame you at all if you ignore them.

#Q&A #tag post #blog milestone #200 followers #OC: Zephania

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Vegetable smuggling, grimmy goods and other retail sabotages. An interview with Louise Ashcroft

In January 2017, artist Louise Ashcroft invited herself to be an artist in residency at Westfield Shopping Centre. That’s the mega mall in Stratford, East London. Its retail area is as big as 30 football pitches (says wikipedia), it has famous chains of fast fashion & fast food, screens budget-bloated blockbusters, rents kiddy cars and boasts some seriously boring ‘public’ artworks. Because there’s nothing remotely boring, mass manufactured nor glittery about her work (and also because she is quietly plotting the demise of capitalism), Ashcroft spent her time there undercover, pretending she was only looking for a bit of shopping fun.

The artist will present the result of her stealth research this week at arebyte in Hackney Wick, a five-minute walk from Westfield. Some of the works she developed at the shopping mall include a transposition of words from slogan fashion T-shirts on traditional narrow boat signs, offers to exchange ‘happy’ meals toys with more ‘soulful’ artist-designed toys, seditious retail therapy sessions, bookable tours of Westfield where she will guide participants through playful (pseudo)psychoanalytical activities, ‘mallopoly’ cards that invite shoppers to use the mall and its contents as a material, etc. Oh! and, since the Westfield area is the home of grime she also compiled words from Argos shopping catalogues into a cut-up text and grime artist Maxsta recorded it as a track.

This is not Ashcroft’s first incursion into the magical world of retail poisoning. She regularly smuggles unfamiliar-looking African vegetables into supermarkets and then throws the store in disarray when she attempts to buy them (Vegetable, 2003-17.) Two years ago, she spent time on another unsanctioned residency at Stratford Centre, a 1970s shopping precinct right in front of the flashy Westfield mall. She analyzed the centre’s marketing philosophy of “taking something negative about yourself and owning it” in the first hilarious TEDx talk i’ve ever seen:

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Louise Ashcroft, Shopping and subversion at TEDxHackneyWomen

Ashcroft‘s solo show I’d Rather Be Shopping opens this Friday at Arebyte gallery as part of the gallery’s 2017 programme, Control. I asked her to take us through her research inside the best air-conditioned workshop an artist could hope for:

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Louise Ashcroft, Stratford Works Trailer

Hi Louise! You had a residency at the Stratford center a couple of years ago. If i understood correctly, you simply invited yourself. It wasn’t an official one. Did the same happen this time in Westfield Center?

Yes, I invited myself to hang around the Stratford centre for some weeks. I’d noticed that it’s a space of resistance- people who can’t or don’t want to opt into the big capitalism of the Westfield mall hang out here, sell things, buy things; and the conventions of modern marketing are repeatedly broken.

It offers an alternative version of capitalism in which street traders, local characters and loiterers coexist with chain stores in a way that Westfield wouldn’t allow. The Stratford Centre is anarchic compared with Westfield – it shows its imperfections, has nothing to hide, whereas its megamall neighbour tightly controls the shopper’s experience so that we only see a partial view of the system and its wider social impact.

Westfield also has peculiar marketing strategies, but their bizarre qualities come from their efforts to conceal darker truths. For example, the biodiversity themed playground, the empty bee nesting boxes fitted into benches in the outdoor ‘street’ area, the plague of slogans featured on all the fashion at the moment- much of which features activist style slogans like ‘we are the future’ or ‘more bikes less cars’ or ‘feminist’. Despite the fact that these items themselves are the causes of ecological issues and problematic body politics. Other fashion slogans are more pessimistic, as though referring resignedly to the impending planetary destruction that consumerism has brought about: ‘I sold my soul’, ‘the end is nigh’, ‘nothing changes’. etc. Some of the t-shirts voice the angry isolation of a relationships based on likes and swipes: ‘whatever I’ll just date myself’, ‘like is the new love’, ‘why you so obsessed with me?’ I’m quite fixated on the t-shirts, they’re like our cultural stream of consciousness. Many express a sort of depressed helplessness: ‘too lazy to be crazy’, or ‘stay in bed’; whilst many celebrate neoliberal ambition and endless self-improvement: ‘no days off’, ‘run’, ‘I want it all’.

I found it hilarious that all the designers seemed to have taken a holiday and set up some sort of algorithm that prints hashtag phrases onto the cheapest plain t-shirts and sells them like hot cakes. It’s like wearable social media, a walking Facebook wall. I figured that these phrases were the key to the subconscious of society at this point in time, and I wanted to analyse this types of phrases that were being selected.

There so much more though. The Mallopoly game I’ve made (which will be given away free to all visitors to the show and people in Westfield) is a self-led series of activities to carry out in the centre, using the products and architecture as materials/props for challenges which each relate to an aspect of the shopping centre’s socio economic DNA. I think encouraging people to behave in different ways there is better than describing what I think is going on. I hope it’s not too didactic, as the tasks all relate to problems like seed rights, pollution, plastic and commodities trading. The tasks are very playful but there’s something quite futile about them too, in the face of these big issues. I want to simultaneously make the players feel liberated from the hegemony of the space but also powerless because the rebellious tasks (mainly involving role play, mime, sensory experiments, disguise, drawing, sound) are all quite benign and impotent really. A lot of my work is hedonistic yet melancholy, maybe that’s what Westfield is like too.

Mallopoly card

Also i was wondering how you behaved during this residency. Did you pretend to be a shopper like anyone else? Did your activities stand out in any way?

I had to pretend I was a shopper so I didn’t get in trouble, particularly when filming or watching people. YouTube vloggers have been banned from Westfield because many were playing pranks. There are a lot of security guards and I was stopped several times and asked if I needed help (or basically asked why I was behaving differently by loitering or photographing). I often get mistaken for staff in some shops, particularly sports shops, if I was wearing casual clothing. I’d originally hoped to find ways of working in the shops as part of the residency but it was difficult to even have conversations with shop assistants – it’s very much about efficiency in a modern shopping centre (not like the social space shops were when I was growing up in the north of England – my mum would spend hours chatting to shop assistants).

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Louise Ashcroft, Unicorns of Westfield, 2017

Like many shopping centres, Westfield Stratford is a very loud place, especially visually. A fairly short amount of time in a shopping mall leaves me quite depressed. Since you spent so much time there, i was wondering if the experience affected your senses and mental well-being in any way?

I felt really lonely there. I remember once eating a packed lunch in the food court and really wanting to start a conversation with an old lady who also looked lonely but there was something about the place that made me nervous to do that – I felt like I’d come across as suspicious (I should have just gone for it). I listened to a lot of teenage conversations in the food hall- chat about social media interrupted by bleeps of social media. It’s definitely a social space if you’re with your group but it’s not the kind of place where people chat to passersby like they do in the Stratford centre. I talked to a middle aged woman for a while, because she was doing market research and I thought I could turn it into a more interesting conversation, but she had targets to meet and was really just interested in following the script that was popping up on her iPad questionnaire. I suppose people expect that if you try to talk to them in this space then you’re motivated by a financial transaction in some way. The first couple of months I found it really hard to be there, but now I feel I could do with much more time. I think the ‘retail therapy’ and performances I’m doing with individuals and groups of audiences will be the point when all of the research comes together in a way that feels really dynamic and impactful.

I’m a believer in the power of confusion, and when a group behaves unusually it provokes those involved and their witnesses to question what’s going on, and to question the whole environment they might have taken for granted.

I’m interested in the research you did with UCL students at The Institute for Global Prosperity to develop a “Deviant Planning Committee”. Are you going to publish online the inventory of deviations you compiled with them? Can you give us examples of some of these deviations?

Having spent so long in the mall, I invited these students, who were from various disciplines (mostly non arts subjects) and were on a summer school, to take my place for a day and hunt for opportunities for deviation within the Olympic park. They weren’t focusing so much on the shopping centre, rather its wider context. Many of the students found it very difficult, and a lot of what came back was ideas for business opportunities or ways of making the place more pleasant. Some of the responses were more critical though, and asked questions, for example about the value of the natural resources such as water and land, about the ways the security staff operate and how they might be used differently, or the names of the streets, or how busy the body is encouraged to be in this space of consuming and exerting energy.

There is a lot of humour in your work. Far more than in capitalism, the theme you’re exploring in many of your works. How do these two relate? How can humour be a useful instrument in subverting capitalism?

I get the same dopamine hit from the punchline of a joke as I do when a concept clicks into place in a conceptual artwork or theoretical text. Comedy is philosophy at its most efficient, with all the excess cut off. Jokes often happen when contrasting ideas come together and connect as part of the same thought, creating a chemical reaction which shifts their original status. If applied to our surroundings I think this is a powerful recipe for challenging the status quo, so I collage together what’s around me to make comic situations which unfold in public. Subverting ordinary situations is inherently funny- it’s what clowns have done for centuries, often literally reversing ordinary behaviour. Humour lets the viewer in because it’s pleasurable to laugh and because it shows that the artist is aware she is not special (a lot of art puts itself on a pedestal and I think this alienates people). It’s my failure to overthrow capitalism and the absurdity of my attempts to do so that make it funny.

There is also a level of naivety which helps me to get away with public actions in the first place. Beauty or technical excellence traditionally provide entry points for the viewer’s contemplation, but these are often focusing on impressing the viewer. My work is ordinary, it’s made with low value materials, it doesn’t require expertise, it often goes wrong and yet it reports back on these inadequacies with glee, a bit like how the Stratford Centre owns its weaknesses.

During these shopping mall residencies you’ve learnt a lot about marketing. I’m wondering if you’re not tempted to apply any of that in your art practice. Not so much in terms of content but as an instrument to advance your career, sell your work, turn you into a formidably marketable artist?

Marketable work tends to be work that has been completed and that it is possible to collect. I wrote a dissertation on wildness and ways of resisting being captured by the market. I only enjoy making work if I feel like it’s somehow transgressive, when it starts to feel like ‘work work’ I’m not interested any more. Wildness is an important part of the DNA of my practice. It’s what allows me to retain exteriority to the systems I analyse. Outsider status is fundamental to that. Even if I’m making objects they are always part of performative gestures and it’s not about finished objects but the effect they have in the moment. The traditionally painted signs featuring t-shirt slogans which I’m making for this show will all be given to the local boating community after the show. In an ideal world I’d have just painted directly into their boats. I love the idea of switching the fashion slogans and boat names.

You worked with grime artist Maxsta on a record inspired by your work at Westfield. How did the collaboration come about and what made you chose the Argos catalogue as a source for the lyrics? Is there a video of the track?

A lot of the pieces I’ve made for this show are collage-like, in that they take aspects of contrasting cultures and combine them. Like jokes do. I found out that this area is the home of grime music and i became interested in the anger in this working class genre and the way it rejects the blingy consumerism of commercial rap. Of all the catalogues in the mall, the Argos catalogue was most bountiful with evocative words I could cherry pick and bring together to make abstract lyrics. I approached a local grime station Don City Radio and they recommended someone but he didn’t get around to it and I couldn’t get through to him on the phone so I did some research and found a more experimental rapper then sent him a twitter message. He got the track to me within a couple of days and it is fantastic. He’s up for working on more collaborative stuff because the way I bring words together seems to work well with his phenomenal vocal abilities. It’s an exercise in appropriation really, but everyone’s appropriating everyone else, speaking through one another’s voices (the Argos copywriters, me, Maxsta). For me, the track reveals that what shops are really selling you are words and images – the materiality of most of the products is often generic (cotton, wheat, plastic, wood, metal…). The society of the spectacle and all that. Me and Maxsta are a pair of spectacles! Words are so rich and yet they’re all free and you can make them anywhere, anytime- that’s liberating. I’m a big believer in the power of parody, and mimicry, like the woman I heard on the radio yesterday doing Shakespeare in an Eastenders accent. By shifting the voice of something you reveal it for what it is.

What will the retail therapy sessions with Louise Ashcroft be like?

The retail therapy sessions will involve me and strangers (1-3 per session) completing a series of tasks in different shops and talking about the products we encounter, as devices for understanding our own lives and futures. We will begin with some exercises from Mallopoly the Westfield themed card game I’ve made which involves challenges like finding a product from as many countries as possible, making a noise track on our phones, dressing up as 18th century farmers in the fitting rooms, miming a coffee break, applying botanical classifications to the architectural decorations. All kinds of experiments, each of which relates to a problem with capitalism such as seed patents, waste or inequality.

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Louise Ashcroft, Bread Suit, 2010

The bio on your website starts with the words “Recognising the power of small acts of resistance”. What can these small acts achieve?

Maybe just to remind us all to question everything and to see past the surface of things, deconstruct our presumptions about the world around us and reconstruct it more knowingly and more actively. An accumulation of small actions is the only way to change the world without becoming a replacement dictator. That’s why I hope my work isn’t preachy or didactic, I think empathising with one another’s weaknesses (mine especially) is crucial to making change happen.

And on top of your bio text, there’s “Nobody likes an activist.” But i feel that everyone wants to be an activist these days. Or at least pose as one. What’s not to like in an activist?

Once my dad said this so I wrote it down. I think he meant that people think activists believe that they’re better than everyone else. I wanted to remind myself that it’s ok not to be liked and that activism isn’t easy, even when it’s this small. If you’re going against the flow then that saps your energy, so reminding myself if that helps me keep going. I’m naturally stubborn and contrary, so the idea of going against the flow appeals. It’s not just for the sake of it either- as artists we have the duty to voice ignored, invisible or repressed truths. Our senses are heightened, we’ve trained for this – like sniffer dogs it’s our job to alert people to unnoticed things and then let them respond to that however they feel.

Thanks Louise!

Louise Ashcroft solo show I’d Rather Be Shopping opens at Arebyte gallery in Hackney Wick on 25th August 2017.

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