(para)site, zack mennell, 2022. Images courtesy of Thames Festival Trust. Photo by Milo Robinson.
a project by zack mennell
This spring and summer, artist zack mennell furthers their ongoing series of works - collectively titled (para)site - with newly commissioned performances in London, Liverpool and South Essex. Exploring the resonances between zack’s experiences of madness and institution and the wider climate of political hostility to disabled, neurodivergent, queer and working-class communities, zack channels these themes into impactful performances.
para(site): a sea change provides the next chapter, with a series of different works facilitated by creative producer Future Ritual. Throughout February 2025, zack was artist-in-residence at Duckie in London during their Rat Park season in London. In March, zack performs at Liverpool’s DaDaFest International, for which they have received DaDaFest’s Live Art Commission. In June, they will perform in South Essex for Estuary Festival 2025, returning to the landscape and community they grew up in.
“All my work starts from a state of compulsion”, says zack. “It is an ongoing attempt to reconcile images, words, and sensations that haunt me. I research intensely, diving into dense academic papers and books while bathing in a wash of images, material, sound, and place. This allows work to emerge that is not directly recognisable as being about but is intrinsically entangled with the knowledge and culture of my topics of enquiry. My work is driven by this unwieldy need to connect with a viewer in an uncommon space, trying to find commonality in this tension and opening ourselves to the uncanny experiences that arise.”
Rage Reactor, Liverpool
zack has been awarded a Live Art commission by DaDaFest International to realise a new work as part of their 40th anniversary festival ‘RAGE: A Quiet Riot’. zack’s work Rage Reactor is an installation and performance work which poetically entangles the traumatic legacy of the nuclear family with the trauma that the civil nuclear industry enacts on the land. Rage Ractor has been commissioned by DaDaFest International and will premiere at Bluecoat (Liverpool).
> DaDaFest Announcement
> Bluecoat Performances, Liverpool, 22nd & 23rd March 2025
> DaDaFest Announcement
> Bluecoat Performances, Liverpool, 22nd & 23rd March 2025
Further Information
Press: abstrakt@abstraktpublicity.co.uk. Producing: producing@futureritual.co.uk.
(para)site is produced by Future Ritual and, alongside the performance works, will involve a workshop series taking place in South Essex throughout 2025.
Further information to follow
Press: abstrakt@abstraktpublicity.co.uk. Producing: producing@futureritual.co.uk.
(para)site is produced by Future Ritual and, alongside the performance works, will involve a workshop series taking place in South Essex throughout 2025.
Further information to follow
Rat Park, London
In London, zack is an artist-in-residence during Duckie’s Rat Park, a programme of weekly gatherings taking place in February, that offer a meditation on intimacy, pleasure, chemsex, cruising and shame. zack will develop a new performance each week, deepening their exploration of toxicity, trauma and difficult legacies.> Duckie: Rat Park, February 2025
Canvey Island, Essex
In June, zack will present a (para)site performance, a site-responsive work exploring the social and ecological context of Canvey Island in South Essex.The post-industrial sites of Canvey Island are becoming recognised as unique ecological habitats, whilst the long legacy of the petrochemical industry (which extends to contemporary refinement plants for gas and petroleum products) continues to impact life (human and otherwise) in the area.
Further information to follow.
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The decommissioned Bradwell nuclear power station, Essex. Photo by zack mennell, 2024.
zack mennell
zack mennell (b. 1994) is a self-taught artist using writing, photography, performance, and film to explore queerness and neurodiversity in relation to presence and visibility.
The first iteration of their ongoing project (para)site was commissioned by Thames Festival Trust and presented at VSSL studio in 2022 as part of Totally Thames Festival and Deptford X. The series has seen zack undertake psycho-geographic explorations of London’s waterways - scavenging for material residues of the city’s industrial past and offering strange performative interventions in ramshackle places. This body of work explores the resonances between zack’s experiences of madness and institutionalisation, the wider climate of political hostility to disabled, neurodivergent, queer and working class communities, and urban histories and ecologies.
The first iteration of their ongoing project (para)site was commissioned by Thames Festival Trust and presented at VSSL studio in 2022 as part of Totally Thames Festival and Deptford X. The series has seen zack undertake psycho-geographic explorations of London’s waterways - scavenging for material residues of the city’s industrial past and offering strange performative interventions in ramshackle places. This body of work explores the resonances between zack’s experiences of madness and institutionalisation, the wider climate of political hostility to disabled, neurodivergent, queer and working class communities, and urban histories and ecologies.
zack is a member of the Liberty Advisory Group, which provides collective oversight of Liberty, the Mayor of London’s flagship festival for D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists. They are a studio holder at Triangle LGBTQ+ Cultural Centre, a member of the Metal New Artist Network, and the Working Class Creatives Database. They are also a member of TOMA (The Other MA) 2024/25 cohort, a professional artist development programme based in Southend-on-Sea. zack was granted an Arts Council England DYCP grant in November 2023, and has recently finished New Dialogues, a visual art creative research commission for the British Art Network and Outside In exploring archives of art created historically in mental health settings.
> Future Ritual: zack mennell
> Whistling as the Night Calls: collaborative photographic works
> Whistling as the Night Calls (editions)
> www.zackmennell.com
(para)site, zack mennell, 2022. Images courtesy of Thames Festival Trust. Photo by Milo Robinson.