Alison J Carr
Sheffield
Artist, writer & lecturer
My work is about power and powerlessness.
I weave together audio, texts, archival and found materials with photographs and performances to interrogate the slippery multi-faceted performance of femininity. I want to bring to light, the contradictions in physical bodily display and the divergent techniques of hiding in plain sight—being the dazzling spectacle in the spotlight. Hyper-visible and invisible, loud and voiceless.
Such spotlight moments in my work draw attention to the crafting of identity through entertainment. Revealing the layers of identity informed by social interaction and contexts. I uncover hidden mechanisms and staged moments, through a process of bringing in expert voices, building unlikely relationships with retired chorus girls, current showgirls and contrary performers, who play along with me, committing to a period of embarrassed rehearsals and the ritual humiliation of public performance.
I am interested in the labour of the performance, the vulnerability of the body, my own lack of talent but also the generation of charisma. I often step into these awkward moments, implicating myself and the viewer; dancing non-stop to the threshold of painful exhaustion; singing sincerely but imperfectly in a crowded room. I aim to capture a certain irreverence, absurdity tinged with melancholy, foolishness, pleasure—all these layers of live performance, all at the same time.
The long exposures of my photographs of theatre interiors reflect aspiration, opulence and dust. The façade and the real. The reality of construction. These resonant and atmospheric spaces are haunted with the trials of optimism and human endeavour, of putting on a show.
I am committed to problematising easy dismissals of femininity and sexual display in favour of indulging deeper enquiry and rigorously researched complexity.
I explore theatres as sites of self-actualisation and Hollywood as a site of avant-garde art. Breaching boundaries between showing-off and reflecting, between exhibitionism and our own interior worlds, I position the night as a world to be inhabited, reclaimed, and enjoyed.
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