about zack
“Artistic expression is, for me, a way to make sense of the world and an attempt to contextualise who I am within it. In stepping into difficulty and pain through artmaking, I attempt to understand life through a different register to that of daily survival. I want my work to have an uncanny quality, that it might temporarily unsettle familiar places, making visible some of the strange aspects and tensions embedded there.”
zack began seeking to marry video with their analogue photographic practices at the beginning of their work on (para)site: a discharge of cultural sewage by making experimental 16mm film down river, down 2022 (right above). They continue exploring the practice of solo photo/film performance with support from not/nowhere and learning further skills in photochemistry as part of their recently awarded A-N Bursary.
DYCP & A-N Bursary
Fenia Kotsopoulou
Manuel Vason
James Holcombe
zack began seeking to marry video with their analogue photographic practices at the beginning of their work on (para)site: a discharge of cultural sewage by making experimental 16mm film down river, down 2022 (right above). They continue exploring the practice of solo photo/film performance with support from not/nowhere and learning further skills in photochemistry as part of their recently awarded A-N Bursary.
(para)site (ongoing)
PSi Consequences
Performance Platform
describe the actions (thinking a bit)
Performance Platform
describe the actions (thinking a bit)
There's a faulty dam in my bladder, trying to stop the urea-tainted waters inside me from mixing with the tainted waters and vapours outside me, but semi-regularly it leaks or gives way altogether. My mind is no different.
I step into this place so close to sites-of-trauma it can feel like drowning in air. I stretch my body along the towpath and let the cyclists, joggers, walkers, and dogs leave their treads in my puffy super-absorbant plastic flesh. No different from the shopping trolleys, tires, bicycles, bottles and pipes, the silt of the canal bed calls out to me, sludgy and fluffy.
I step into this place so close to sites-of-trauma it can feel like drowning in air. I stretch my body along the towpath and let the cyclists, joggers, walkers, and dogs leave their treads in my puffy super-absorbant plastic flesh. No different from the shopping trolleys, tires, bicycles, bottles and pipes, the silt of the canal bed calls out to me, sludgy and fluffy.
Visions of Madness 2023 – Ongoing
zack was one of the participants of Change Minds in spring 2023, organised by the Bethlem Museum of the Mind. They are collaborating with a diverse group of other service users within the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. The group’s collective aim is to delve into the stories of previous patients at Bethlem Hospital. Using the Victorian casebook entries as a starting point and conducting further research into the lives of their selected patient through other records and creative interpretation. zack is crafting further artworks and formulating a larger engagement project that draws from this archival work, utilizing photography and writing to give voice to those whose voices are often disregarded and disappeared.
DESCRIBE WHY - STRONG DRESSES, PRETTINESS - WEIGHTED BLANKETS - Chemical Restraint
Digital scans of collage by zack mennell. Reproduction of archival image belongs to Bethlem Museum & Archive.
The product of 2023 – Ongoing
The product of is a collaborative performance/installation project by zack mennell and leon clowes. It draws on official and personal documents, photos, objects, words, and sounds to evoke concealed and distorted situations and navigates memory, loss, and rage through script, action, and audience engagement and examines horror, humour, and humanity within unpalatable truths, seeking a nuanced exchange about traumatic circumstances. Recently, they were awarded a Seeding Space bursary by London Performance Studios. This grants them a focused week of studio time for developing installation pieces and performance actions, along with fundraising training from Cause4.
Teddy/Daddy
PLAY ETC WHY WHAT
Photo Works
All photos by zack mennell
Writing
ANGELA LANSBURYTEDDY/DADDY
INLAND EMPIRE
NEW ARTICLE(S) In theory/philosophy of practice
FISTING and Performance LHC (Kane & Phoebe)
Moreover, they have a forthcoming contribution to Dolly Sen's Birdsong From Inobservable Worlds, a commission supported by Unlimited and Wellcome Trust.
Martin O’Brien Photographic Installation
zack has been working with Martin O’Brien for the last 8 years and is currently assisting him in the creation of new works during his year as writer-in-residence at Whitechapel Gallery. zack’s role in Martin’s performances is one of care and control. They work collaboratively to score and structure the pieces, sometimes incorporating photography into the live works.
zack has been working with Martin O’Brien for the last 8 years and is currently assisting him in the creation of new works during his year as writer-in-residence at Whitechapel Gallery. zack’s role in Martin’s performances is one of care and control. They work collaboratively to score and structure the pieces, sometimes incorporating photography into the live works.
All photos by zack mennell