(para)site, zack mennell, 2022. Images courtesy of Thames Festival Trust. Photo by Milo Robinson.
a project by zack mennell
(para)site: a sea change explores the intersection of ecology, class, mental health, disability & queerness, including the impact of industrial legacies on marginalised communities. Undertaking psychogeographic explorations of civil nuclear & post-industrial coastal sites, mennell will scavenge for objects & sounds, drawing out the working-class, disabled & queer histories embedded in these places.
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.
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.
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.