Take a Girl's Word (2023) improvised courtroom performance, film.
Women sex worker's expletives on arrest randomised and performed in the Academic Star Chamber alternated with scenes of improvised artist movement inside the court. One of a series of four works produced in the Academic Star Chamber Series (2023) as artist in residence at OVADA, Oxford.
Academic Star Chamber: a derogatory metaphor used by the town in the 19th Century for the Chancellor’s Court at the University of Oxford to raise public consciousness of the treatment of women sex workers convicted by the Court, sometimes based on appearance alone. The term referenced the Court of Star Chamber abolished in the 1640s, the King’s prerogative, synonymous with oppression, ignoring due process and administering corporal punishment such as the pillory and cheek branding. A pertinent metaphor for how later generations regarded the University Court and its handling of a disproportionate number of these women’s hearings. The Court of Star Chamber did once exist in the Palace of Westminster, so called because of its deep blue ceiling and shining, golden stars, the ceiling now in the Wirral in Leasowe Castle (1836), the door allegedly removed and installed in Westminster School London. The Chancellor’s Court also heard the trial of Oscar Wilde, for debt (1877).
Studies for Academic Star Chamber. Original Star Chamber Ceiling, Drawing, graphite on paper, 84 x 70cms, the Artist
No Stars (2023) Artist Poem on brown paper.
Study before Lapis Lazuli (2023) Powder on Clay, (Titanium Dioxide, mica, silica, red Iron Oxide, Manganese violet, chromium oxide green,, ultramarine blue, ferric ferrocyanide), 6x6cms, the Artist.