Site-specific performance (45 minutes)
Material
Projected images, hay, tattoo gun and ink
Information
Import X Port is a currency and a debate located on the border of skin.
A live tattooing takes place in the workroom of the former Morley factory. The tattooist’s gun once more fills the space with the sound of machinery as it pierces the skin textile. Gradually a letter ‘X’ appears, in initially as an outline of intersecting lines, developing into an inky presence that marks the artists’ body.
Samuel Morley (1809-1886) was an ardent abolitionist and a respected member of parliament. The letter X is symbolic of the mark historically made by enslaved people as a stand-in signature for an alien and unfathomable language marking the end of freedom. In the 20th Century Malcom X rejected the insertion of a European surname into his family history. Unable to return to his obliterated African name X became the mark of his non-compliance and insistence on self-determination for fellow ‘othered’ citizens. X is the marker of citizenship , inextricably linked to notions of nationhood, conveying the right to vote. Histories of Morley’s work to abolish slavery intersect the radical protesting of the suffragettes to gain equal citizenship for women and to register their political voice via the ballot box. The forced labour of slavery and force feeding of the hunger-striking suffragettes expose the power drive of wealth and consumption. Histories of trade, occupation and resistance intersect in the marking of X.
Performed
Backlit, Nottingham, UK (2014) The former Morley factory on the 112th anniversary of Morley’s death.
Funded Arts Council England
Photo credits
Julian Hughes
Related publications
The Flying Wheel. Eds Matthew Chesney and Carol A. Jones