Curated Selection: Costume and Character

Inspired by our upcoming 'in conversation' event with Zinzi Minott, this week's Curated Selection focusses on artists who have explored costume and characters as part of their practice. Featuring: Lewis Prosser, Charlotte Squire, Quilla Constance, Victoria Rance and Lucy Wright

The conjuring of Vogum Gertlin, 2024

Lewis Prosser

The conjuring of Vogum Gertlin was a new work for StrangeField's AGENDA, an evening of performance work co-curated by William Joys and Jenny Tipton in Glasgow.

This event marked the debut of new basket regalia costumes, part of an ongoing project exploring the material culture of folk theatre. Funded by Arts Council Wales and Creative Scotland, this performance delved into the regionalisms and performed identities of the borderlands between the South West of England and Wales.

The work served as both a tribute to the wetlands of Somerset, where much of the UK's basket-weaving willow grows, and a critical examination of semi-rural masculinity and romanticised drinking cultures. Through an improvisational ceremony, the artist conjured the character of Vogum Gertlin, an invented anti-hero and traveller from Bridgwater Town, bringing a mix of reverence, chaos, and critique to the stage.

Performing alongside Tamir Petet, Stephanie Black-Daniels, William Joys and Dirt Brooks

Photography By Chaoying Rao

Seedhead, 2022

Charlotte Squire

Walking the bounds at 'Performing Green', an exhibition at Bell House Dulwich Agapanthus seed heads and wire headdress, and artists linen coat. This ritual figure walked the bounds of the exhibition space to signify a human being in the natural world

'Transcend' Painting-Performance, 2023

Quilla Constance

'Transcend' Painting-Performance by Quilla Constance, 2023

Tabard, 2012

Victoria Rance

The sculpture to wear series creates a sheltering skin that protects or alters the sense of self in a difficult world. The sculptures have elements of ceremonial architecture and costume, both contemporary and historic. Physically they test the tension between protective constraint and freedom of movement. Tabard was made after watching porcupines raise their quills in self defence. For me the character evoked is that of a battle weary old soldier, the kind with long thick hairs sprouting from his eyebrows, experienced in battle and ready to defend himself and country, but tired and scarred. Made of jute, wax and palm stalks with shop dummy.

Plough'd, 2024

Lucy Wright

A series of performances drawing on the traditions associated with Plough Monday—the seasonal custom marking the beginning of the agricultural year. The performances also reference folk song scholar A.L. Lloyd’s observation that 'the act of love is often symbolised as ploughing, sowing, reaping, mowing'.