THE FOOL
HUGE SILLYTOE
27 JUNE – 22 JULY, 2022
Ahead of our next exhibition THE FOOL in August this year, HUGE SILLYTOE will be in residence with us for 4 weeks researching, testing and making a brand new work for inclusion in the following exhibition.
THE FOOL
What is a fool?
– A clown?
– A buffoon?
– A knave?
– A joker?
– A nincompoop?
And what might be the political impacts of these different meddling characters in different places and moments?
As artist in residence at AirSpace Gallery, Huge Sillytoe will be creating a series of experimental happenings, workshops, improvisations, and participatory performance games at AirSpace, The Portland Inn Project, and public spaces around Stoke-on-Trent. They will also create a host of masks, puppets, noise-instruments/automatic-sound-poetry-machines, and other (un)necessary props, building up to a new performance work exploring the political ramifications, great and small, global and local, of playing and fooling.
Thinking of the figure of the medieval court jester afforded license to playfully provoke, a quotation from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night might come to mind: “There is no slander in an allow’d fool”. Here the subversive capacity of the fool may be seen as diminished if their fooling is ultimately permitted by the powerful. Perhaps, then, the real dissident force of the fool may lie in doing what is not permitted, transgressing expectations and undermining hierarchical demands. Here a slogan of the Provos/Kabouters Dutch performance prankster collectives of the 60s/70s still resonates: “That which you are not allowed to do, you can still do it”.
Huge Sillytoe’s work as artist in residence at AirSpace will play with how the fool may help us today to righteously break the rules and do what we are not allowed to do - establishing greater freedoms in resistance to the oppressive dictates of normative authority.
HUGE SILLYTOE
@hugesillytoe
Huge Sillytoe is a large, foolish toe. They are also a multidisciplinary artist working across performance, clowning, puppetry, poetry, music, storytelling, and visual art. They specialize in live art, often performing with masks, costumes, and interactive sculptures built from found materials. Harnessing their unique artistic position as a shape-shifting oversized and daft toe, they seek to toe open the pathway to a stranger and fairer world through performances that playfully defy normative expectations. Meanwhile, they regularly assist others to trample this trail further via facilitating workshops where new practices of transgressive, emancipatory performance are nurtured collectively.
Born and raised in Durham, Huge Sillytoe is now itinerant, based during recent years between New York, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and London. They hold a practice-led PhD in Performance Studies from the University of Glasgow and have been seen performing at Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), Manuke (Tokyo), MKA: Theatre of New Writing (Melbourne), Grace Exhibition Space (New York), Judson Memorial Church (New York), Experiencia Hiedra (Buenos Aires), Teatro Popular La Otra Cosa (Buenos Aires), Temporary Autonomous Arts (London), Casa Viva (Mexico City), Huerto Roma Verde (Mexico City), Taller del Artista (San José, Costa Rica), Myymälá 2 (Helsinki), and many unexpected crevices in-between. Huge Sillytoe speaks fluent English, Spanish, Portuguese, and the supersensible language of Toetapoelib. They make work in all these languages and more.
THE FOOL
What is a fool?
– A clown?
– A buffoon?
– A knave?
– A joker?
– A nincompoop?
And what might be the political impacts of these different meddling characters in different places and moments?
As artist in residence at AirSpace Gallery, Huge Sillytoe will be creating a series of experimental happenings, workshops, improvisations, and participatory performance games at AirSpace, The Portland Inn Project, and public spaces around Stoke-on-Trent. They will also create a host of masks, puppets, noise-instruments/automatic-sound-poetry-machines, and other (un)necessary props, building up to a new performance work exploring the political ramifications, great and small, global and local, of playing and fooling.
Thinking of the figure of the medieval court jester afforded license to playfully provoke, a quotation from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night might come to mind: “There is no slander in an allow’d fool”. Here the subversive capacity of the fool may be seen as diminished if their fooling is ultimately permitted by the powerful. Perhaps, then, the real dissident force of the fool may lie in doing what is not permitted, transgressing expectations and undermining hierarchical demands. Here a slogan of the Provos/Kabouters Dutch performance prankster collectives of the 60s/70s still resonates: “That which you are not allowed to do, you can still do it”.
Huge Sillytoe’s work as artist in residence at AirSpace will play with how the fool may help us today to righteously break the rules and do what we are not allowed to do - establishing greater freedoms in resistance to the oppressive dictates of normative authority.
HUGE SILLYTOE
@hugesillytoe
Huge Sillytoe is a large, foolish toe. They are also a multidisciplinary artist working across performance, clowning, puppetry, poetry, music, storytelling, and visual art. They specialize in live art, often performing with masks, costumes, and interactive sculptures built from found materials. Harnessing their unique artistic position as a shape-shifting oversized and daft toe, they seek to toe open the pathway to a stranger and fairer world through performances that playfully defy normative expectations. Meanwhile, they regularly assist others to trample this trail further via facilitating workshops where new practices of transgressive, emancipatory performance are nurtured collectively.
Born and raised in Durham, Huge Sillytoe is now itinerant, based during recent years between New York, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and London. They hold a practice-led PhD in Performance Studies from the University of Glasgow and have been seen performing at Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), Manuke (Tokyo), MKA: Theatre of New Writing (Melbourne), Grace Exhibition Space (New York), Judson Memorial Church (New York), Experiencia Hiedra (Buenos Aires), Teatro Popular La Otra Cosa (Buenos Aires), Temporary Autonomous Arts (London), Casa Viva (Mexico City), Huerto Roma Verde (Mexico City), Taller del Artista (San José, Costa Rica), Myymälá 2 (Helsinki), and many unexpected crevices in-between. Huge Sillytoe speaks fluent English, Spanish, Portuguese, and the supersensible language of Toetapoelib. They make work in all these languages and more.
