A Score, A Groove, A Phantom, A rukus! 2016-2024

An immeasurable joy can be found through dance

A Score, A Groove, A Phantom, A rukus! installation view, part of ‘Making a rukus! Black Queer histories through love and resistance’ at Somerset House, October 2024, Photographed by Tim Bowditch

The joy I find through dance is immeasurable.

My work has sought to make this visible in a number of ways - through my performance videos, drawing, writing and since 2018 as part of Black Obsidian Sound System, the collective that emerged from my exhibition ‘Ritual Without Belief’ at Gasworks London in June that year.

I felt honoured to be invited by Topher Campbell to develop an installation for the rukus! exhibition that opened last week at Somerset House. It gave me an opportunity to revisit a body of work that hasn’t been shared in London, or anywhere else, for some time.

This restaged presentation of A Score, A Groove, A Phantom, A rukus! Explores archives of Blackness, sociality and inheritance as they diffract through Black Queer nightlife and trauma in the present moment, expressing the energy of memoir through the interaction of bodies and desire. 

Against the backdrop of Evan’s soundscape, objects including photographs, flyers, HIV prevention materials, music, magazine articles, posters and clothing act as testament to the strength and liberation found in Black LGBTQ+ club culture. Materials from iconic clubs including Bootylicious, Pressure Zone, Off the Hook, Stallions, Black Perverts Network and many more will feature, demonstrating how clubs created their own rhythms, fashions and languages.  

Prior to the exhibition open, Topher and I had a conversation about the wider themes of the exhibition in my studio. We discussed clubbing, community building, making our own archives and more.

Watch the full interview with Topher Campbell here

A highlight of the exhibition for me is the interplay between the expanded drawing ‘A person of indeterminate gender moves freely across the room’, the LED light, the mirror and the club ephemera suspended from the ceiling.

This drawing has taken on many forms now, and began as a video - ‘Nature/Nurture sketch’ (2013).

Nature Nurture Sketch (extract), 2013 , the track playing in the background is Venus X’s Live edit of ‘Renegade Berbase’

Later, in a performative gesture I decide redraw the various movements on top of each other, and ‘A person of indeterminate gender moves freely across the room’ was born.

Here the original drawing, taped to fabric sits alongside the opening text for my radio play ‘This Catalogue of Poses’ (seen in a Serpentine Galleries Park Nights pamphlet) an extract of which can be heard as part of the installation in the rukus! exhibition.

That same year I make the video work ‘She Was A Full Body Speaker’, drawing from the Rewind/Fast Forward Archive of Sandi Hughes.

‘She Was A Full Body Speaker’, video (still), 2016

I hope you get the opportunity to fully immerse yourself in the experience, and the amazing histories present within the wider exhibition. Feel free to share the impression the space left on you, if you did!

‘A Score, A Groove, A Phantom, A rukus! (2016-2024) is currently on view in Making a rukus! Black Queer Histories through Love and Resistance, Somerset House London, 11th October 2024 – 19th January 2025