Centre of Somewhere: South Africa Focus
GOLDENDEAN
(South Africa)
BIG FAT LIGHT MERQUEER
UNFORTUNATELY THIS INSTALLATION HAS HAD TO BE POSTPONED DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER
New Presentation Times:
Thursday 26th October: 17:00 - 21:00
Friday 27th October: 17:00 - 21:00
Hidden Gardens at Tramway (Directions)
No ticket required
ACCESS: AD (Festival Access Page).
A pre-recorded audio description by the artist is available at the sculptures, which are also able to be touched. You can also listen to the audio description embedded here, or download the file to your own device via this link. Sighted guides will be stationed throughout the building on Saturday 21st and can assist with navigating the building and accessing audio description and touch tours.
Goldendean invites you to a tender moment with a “soft radical” – to catch breath, bubbles and feelings. To be tender, to take space, be vulnerable and risk visibility – in performance, and as large scale inflatable sculptures. As a “Fat Queer White Trans body” in the context of South Africa, artist Dean Hutton questions who or what is entitled to take up space. In doing so, they address the personal and political of hypervisibility: being visible (as a fat, queer, white, trans body) and invisible, unimportant at the same time (as a fat, queer, white, trans body).
The ‘Big Fat Light MerQueer’, is a hybrid between human and sea monster that seems to have crawled out of the water – with tentacles. They drew inspiration from folktales of merfolk like the ‘Mermaid of Edam’ and ‘Mamlambo’, a river goddess with a snakelike appearance from South African and Xhosa mythology, but who is often depicted as a mermaid. When caught, they are said to bring prosperity.
Goldendean shares moments of soft courage to affirm the right of all bodies to exist, to be celebrated and protected – to invoke those tender feelings through deliberate acts of remaining silly and playful, sometimes a clown, sometimes a warrior, always vulnerable… Radically soft in an uncompromising world… A tenderqueer investing trust in an audience to respond in kindness, to let our bodies be safe together, to queer space no matter the way we sometimes fail each other.
Check out Goldendean’s other work throughout the Festival:
The golden inflatable Soft Vxnxs will be presented in Princes Square on 13th- 14th & 28th-29th October.
Experience their live performance work Breathe at Tramway on Saturday 21st October.
Dean Hutton is a genderqueer trans media artist provoking dialogue about the gaze, queer bodies, love and social justice. Their strategy of simple and often improvised, disruptive actions by a “Fat Queer White Trans body” share moments of soft courage to affirm the right of all bodies to exist, to be celebrated and protected. Their extensive studio practice, as a photographer and a visual artist producing works on paper, digital video and sculptural objects, bridge intersecting genres of documentary, fiction and fantasy to produce radical queer counter narratives. Gender neutral pronouns: They/ Them
Presentation Credits: Dean Hutton/ Goldendean.
Production credits: The Big Fat Light Merqueer commissioned by NDSM, For Come to Light curated by Petra Heck.
The Glasgow presentation is presented in collaboration with the Stichting NDSM-werf, the foundation that oversees programming and manages the outdoor area at the NDSM Wharf.in Amsterdam Noord in the Netherlands.
Photos: © Gert Jan Van Rooij
Goldendean is presented as part of the Centre of Somewhere South Africa focus, funded by the British Council International Collaboration programme.
