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MAMA vulnerare- To Wound

MAMA vulnerare - To Wound

 

We are a collective of artists from the Royal College of Art MA Photography programme.  Our work reaches across and through both still and moving image, sculpture, and performance.  Within this trans disciplinary practice, questions of identity and belonging are gazed upon and considered.  The distance between people is measured by red balloons on the clocks of wind and tide.  Longing extends its arms, through a torso swirling in solitude, as bodily scissors sculpt the space with sadness.  The hard lines that sometimes cut through families leave voids and their lack of crossing points are found here, specifically between Mother and daughter.  Hands and faces arise out from hidden places and manipulate the surface, emerging and retreating by turns. Poetry drips down walls as traditional Greek dress adorns queer bodies and the status quo is turned on its head.  Spaces of care and age are given form around curves and through holes, as cities are built from stapled stacks. Hybrid formations emerge from hidden identities, as sequinned comedy lances tragedy, in a lonely waltz beneath a dark bridge. 

 

Dialogue arises between materiality and performance.  The entanglements of our lives are questioned through critical thinking and dancing by water.  The aesthetics of intimacy accompany a shock of colour in glass.

 

Our work is marked by our affect upon each other and is gathered here as a collection of individuated practices, linked through the bond of time traversing tender subjects and considering what we might make out of abrading times.

 

Mama, I’m dangerous
She was never there
I was meant to be at your breast

Soured milk
Snipped hair
From the resentment of your body 

Into the cruelty of the void 

 

Olivier and Edward - weirdly hot 

Or charming
Something
Sweet and quiet 

Arresting

 

Mama
As the daughter I am your wound
As my mother you are a cut
In the surface of an expectation I could not hold 

Failed to be 

 

You can’t just stick a crutch against a wall and call it art 

I gave you that months ago 

 

She would have been liable to bleed excessively 

And still the poetry of birth
And the agony of loss
I remember you because I am of your body 

Bloody eucharist 

 

Feel so vulnerable
Dying inside
See me whilst i hide behind my hair
Its probably a rouse but I’m starting to love it

 

Theres a fire in the house
You should go to lewes
Explosions in the street
They burn the dead in my country 

 

We have been a family this year 

Not by blood
But by flow
By love 

 

I came to the uk
Noone speaks my language 

 

This place is home
I don’t want to leave 

Let me stay 

 

I am alone
It is dark
Are you understanding me
Is that a translation app or are you just on your phone 

 

My husband should identify my body 

 

Woman on woman
The smallest unit of violence 

I recognise the ties that bind 

 

Mama
We begin somewhere 

Who knows where Female
Cis
Queer 

 

Multiple sharp force injuries 

Extend to the deep structures 

No signs 

 

Embarrassed by the neon lights of the club 

Dancing self consciously
As edward puts on another tune
80’s no doubt 

Something emotive 

Followed by Plath 

Standing on a chair 

Forgetting the words 

“Daddy, I’ve had to kill you” 

 

The body was identified by a wristband 

Transverse incised wounds
Blood and vitreous humour were taken 

The bath water was heavily stained 

We are growing older 

 

Szu - the way you dance Its stunning 

We’ve been drawn out by a subtle knife

Cutting through the fabric of our fears

Faces rising to the sun
Its electric 

 

And i
The foetus
Will endure
In your stem cells

 

My mother is young
People think we are sisters
And in the streets
Care moves
Illusory
Through the tides of these people
That flow through the city, day and night 

 

Mickey thats gorgeous 

Szu whats wrong 

 

I am an outlier 

Alone with my cut 

 

I’m sorry but we need to get this done Where’s 

Wanyi ? Such a rebel
 

Alexi your’re shouting again
Let Naomi finish 

 

I dont want them to look at me 

Then why perform?
Own it 

 

Holes, hmmm
BDSM
And the existential french 

kissing me in the darkness 

 

Do you think James was a spy? 

 

Can we speak?
By any means possible 

Face to face 

.

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All images copyright Alex Charovas

ALeXi CHAROVAS
 

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