Jordan McKenzie
Lecturer BA Drawing University of the Arts, London
Profile
I am an artist working across the disciplines of performance and visual art practice. My interest in doing this fellowship comes from a desire to have a rich and on-going dialogue with other fellows as well as collaborate with the departments of Drama, Film and Geography to create a major body of work that examines the cultural and political space of the council estate. In particular I am interested in how dominant stereotypical assumptions about estates may be challenged and subverted to re-imagine/frame them. For the past five years I have engaged with the estate that I live on as an extended studio, running a performance space from an abandoned garage on the estate, (LUPA – Lock Up Performance Art) and making various performances/interventions/installations in and around the estate and Bethnal Green. I want to explore what kinds of voices emerge within this context, who audiences are and how the notion of ‘socially engaged practice’ may be pushed, pulled, tested and critiqued.
I am currently a lecturer in the department of drawing at Camberwell College (UAL) and run a lecture series engaging with contemporary cultural practice and critical theory for foundation level students at Kingston University.
Work
Many of my newer works are made collaboratively and I am involved in a long-term project examining shame, sexuality, trauma and catharsis called Shame Chorus. Working with the psychotherapist Susie Orbach, The Freud Museum and The London Gay Men’s Chorus this project will result in a large choral performance work being produced in 2016. To see more about this project please visit our website at www.shamechorus.com
I am also hoping to start applications for funding another project that examines risk and well-being in relation to the phenomena of Chemsex and have been working on this with Dr Ford Hickson Lecturer in Health Promotion Theory at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This
will result in a sound installation and sculpture that integrates the multiple voices of chemsex (participants, gay and bisexual men, health care workers, researchers etc.)
At UAL Camberwell I also co-run with my colleague Patti Ellis a student centred conference about art and council estates called Look At the (E)State We’re In. This major conference invited the local community of Peckham, artists, students, academics and activists to create dialogue around the phenomena of the council estate as a site for artistic practice. The conference was held in a pool hall, a health centre and the local liberal club and included panel discussions, workshops, film events and an exhibition. Students at UAL Camberwell ran every detail of the conference: selecting the speakers and chairing the panels, curating the events and exhibitions, promoting the event and advertising the conference.