Submerge Labs: In Residence – Tammy Reynolds

Artist in residence Tammy Reynolds develops ideas related to their one-to-one performance encounter Get In Loser, We’re Going Shopping.

As part of Submerge Festival 2022’s in residence programme Tammy Reynolds will work with Rosana Cade to develop the ideas behind their new work; Get In Loser, We’re Going Shopping.

The starting point for the work is an idea for a one-to-one performance developed for one audience member at a time as part of a Submerge micro-commission in 2021. The proposed work was conceived via the Making Intimate Performance (2021) strand for one-to-one work. Tammy received mentoring from artist Jo Bannon to develop the piece, which uses the framework of a grocery shop to create authentic moments of understanding, exchange and humour between artist and audience.

GET IN LOSER, WE’RE GOING SHOPPING

In Get In Loser, We’re Going Shopping, audiences have a 1-2-1 conversation with Tammy over the phone as they explore a supermarket together. The piece uses the artist’s experiences of supermarket shopping, as a person with dwarfism, to begin a conversation around privilege and Ableism; the conscious or unconscious discrimination against the disabled community.

Although the artist is seen in drag as their alter ego Midgitte Bardot in the marketing of the work, the encounter takes place out of drag; making clear the hypervisibility of artist’s body in public space as a dwarf, the impossibility of blending in and the exhaustion of being constantly on show when you are visibly different. 

Get In Loser, We’re Going Shopping is both an illumination of the systemic ableism faced by the artist as a disabled person, and a darkly comedic encounter with an artist of huge wit, charm and candour.

Whilst on the surface this may seem like a show and tell, Get In Loser is about more than just illuminating ableism, Tammy acknowledges the complexities of being pigeonholed as a representative for a community. The work takes an intersectional approach, bringing in aspects of their queer and poltical identities and Reynolds is keen for the work to go beyond a simple conversation about disability and towards broad, radical structural change across the board.  

This isn’t just about the poor little dwarf who can’t reach the Nutella, Tammy is here to help people participate in capitalism, even though sometimes it doesn’t seem like it wants us to. 

CREDITS

This residency has been kindly supported by Goethe Institut-London and Contact.