Daniella Valz Gen: Gorgeous

  • DVG Gorgeous 2

    Daniella Valz Gen, Gorgeous (2024)

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Thu 5 Dec, 6.30pm

Gallery 2

Monday Closed
Tuesday 11am–6pm
Wednesday 11am–6pm
Thursday 11am–9pm
Friday 11am–6pm
Saturday 11am–6pm
Sunday 11am–6pm

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Performance
Daniella Valz Gen: Gorgeous

Medusa, a child of the old gods, the only mortal gorgon, a hybrid being, a monster, is  just another gorgeous girl that became a casualty of power games. Her image continues to evoke primal emotions of fear and rage in contemporary culture. Her severed head, a protective talisman meant to ward off evil, is a symbol of victim’s wrath and of luxury fashion.

Gorgeous is an experimental poetic ritual that retells the story of a gorgeous girl turned monster. Composed live in collaboration with experimental musician Ana Tiene (F*choir, Trouble Wanted), Gorgeous explores narratives of power, desire and trauma, through text, film and sound.

Gorgeous is the second iteration of a series of expanded poetry, performances and texts by 2024 Writer in Residence Daniella Valz Gen that reclaim, reimagine and embody mythological characters that have been othered, misunderstood or misrepresented.

Find out more about Daniella’s residency here. 

 

About Daniella Valz Gen

Process-led, Daniella Valz Gen’s work explores poetic experience through different forms of reading, writing, performing and making. They’re invested in a relational and responsive approach to land, place, and the other-than-human. Born in Peru and based in London, Valz Gen’s work highlights the interstices between languages, cultures and value systems as areas where potential new meanings can arise.  

(Be)longing (2019) realised site-specific landscape interventions examining migration and ecology in post Brexit Britain. In 2022 Valz Gen took part in the OrganizmoBloom residency, ‘Body, Weaving and Territory’ (British Council/European Alternatives) in an indigenous community in the Amazon, which gave space for an immersive process of evaluation of indigenous technologies, in relation to language, environment and craft.  

Valz Gen’s work has been shown at Glasgow International, SPILL Festival, Aichi Triennale, Gropius Bau among others. Subversive Economies, their first poetry collection, was published by PSS Press in 2018. Their writing has been featured in The Happy Hypocrite, Map Magazine, Salt, and others.

About Ana Tiene

Ana Tiene is an experimental self-taught musician trained in traditional Brazilian percussion. Ana works with children, plays drums with iconic queer band Trouble Wanted, and sings with the gender bending F*Choir.