A search for aesthetical methodologies that problematize how history is written and traditions are represented continues to drive my practice. My work evolves through re-defining, re-contextualising and experimenting with affectual discourses and a constant engagement with questions exploring what tradition is, whom it belongs to and how it can be reclaimed by those marginalised within it. In the past two years I have been developing a notion of ‘tender crafts’, which is exploring how crafts (and tradition) can be revisited and re-imagined from contemporary feminist, queer and diasporic (migrant) perspectives.

Through my new moving image work that I am researching during the residency I would like to explore folklore’s capacity to move through political vulnerabilities and its potential to foster new forms of kinship, affective communities, intimacy and care. With this in mind I would put an emphasis on customs and traditions that have transgressive, protective and healing purposes.

Costumes and masks (made in collaboration with a costume designer) based on traditional garments will play an important part of the choreography and visual structure of the work. As furtherance of their role in folk traditions the costumes will function as storytelling vehicles, shaped by the intersection of collective memories, personal histories and socio-political visual codes.