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(be)longing

Curious

(be)longing, Curious. Photo by the artists.
2007

Camouflaged in cowboy shirts with fancy stitches made to hide broken hearts and cowboy boots custom made for the walking wounded, deflecting vulnerability with sequins and high heels, this is Curious at their most personal and poignant.

Beneath the neon glow of a highway road sign, their yearnings take them across vast desert landscapes in frustrated searches for fulfillment and fitting in. Leslie Hill carries the exquisite burden of newly purchased guitars she can’t really play while Helen Paris exiles herself to yoga retreats and detox diets before finally giving up and retraining as a butcher.

“Like a road trip into the atriums of the heart, or a song whose first chords fill you with sweet despair… the quiet power of Leslie Hill and Helen Paris’s performance lies in its low-key directness, its quirky juxtapositions and its understanding of the geography of loneliness and the myth of return.”

The Guardian

(be)longing was commissioned by The Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University and the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Canada with support from Arts Council England, Brunel University and SMARTLab Digital Media Institute, University of East London.

(be)longing, Curious. Photo by the artists.
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