This is a clip of us trying out our beautiful and brilliant Rocking Horse shoes for the first time (before they were painted!)

I am not doing a very good job at it!

We made ourselves laugh at least.

Petra Storrs and I were commissioned by curator Ligaya Salazar at the Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion, to create a performance piece as part of their Relaunch program.

Together we created a show called “Dressing For Breakfast”. A chance discovery at my mother’s house gave us an idea. Inside an old shoe box I found a card board doll, that my mother had cut as a child from the back of a 1950s cereal box. Most thrillingly of all the doll had a harem of carefully cut out cardboard costumes.

The costumes ran in a vaguely historical order, starting with a very fine caveman fur….

And also featured key historical figures including Joan of Arc, Sir Walter Raleigh and Marie Antoinette…

Using this as inspiration the performance considers what would happen if we had life size cardboard cut out costumes in our day to day life to suit all occasions…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126059402@N05/sets/72157645646524814/

“Toto I’ve the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”

The Cob Gallery can be found, like a ruby in the dust, in a side street by Camden Road Station. The galleries current exhibition In Dreams is the exotic love child of Cob Gallery and Guts for Garters.

On entering you are met by Robert Montgomery’s Intallation “The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of You And Like That You Keep Them Alive” Immediately your eyes prick and the blue in your veins spills. In that moment we have left Camden, jumped down the rabbit hole, sat with Jung and ended up in Resnais’s Last Year in Marienbad.

The work is curated not so much as an exhibition but as a tender and sensual labyrinth. Our teeth fall out and are lined up in porcelain cups along the front desk. As we walk down the stairs we met by Kate Mccgwire’s Sluice, feathers spilling out of the wall onto the floor and Rebecca Stevenson’s candy floss pink rabbits made of wax which are melting into flowers.

Phoebe Collings – Jame’s moving and haunting film “In the midst of life…..” plays on repeat cycle. Such is the immersive quality of the exhibition, one feels they want to stay here with Dorothy in her field of poppies.

As part of In Dreams there is a Pop Up Shop on Camden High Street and various other exciting events, including film screenings, sleep experiments and a one off performance of my show Camellia and the Rabbit. THIS SUNDAY, JULY 21st at 3.30pm.

It is a great delight and privilege to be performing the show in collaboration with Cob and Garters and with Sexton Blake who is creating a dream like Pink Champagne Afternoon Tea to be shared together after the performance.

Sunday 21st June Cob Gallery. 3.30pm.
The Cob Gallery
205 Royal College Street
London
NW1 OSG
Booking essential. To do so call 02072099110
Or email
INFO@COBGALLERY.COM
RACHEL@COBGALLERY.COM

Here we are. First Blog. Thank you Petra Storrs and Jake Farr for making my website.