VSSL Studio are excited to announce the soft launch of their visual arts programme; Entanglements of the Apocalypse - with inaugural performances by Catherine Hoffman of their latest work; Wormhole Of Our Formation.
Catherine will performance twice (3pm & 5pm on Saturday the 12th of July) during the opening weekend of Deptford X .
ABOUT WORMHOLE OF OUR FORMATION:
Part absurdist ritual attempting control, part elemental exorcism, Wormhole Of Our Formation is a vertiginous road trip through collapse – mental, environmental, economic – driven by unyielding text through warped music and howling storms. A raw, hallucinatory performance that tears through the psychic wreckage of Breakdown Britain.
This is a ride into the fragmentation of the self as Tetley tea bags pile up and scrambled eggs congeal. In debt and displaced Hoffmann charts a personal odyssey across red-alert storm zones, B&Bs, motorway shutdowns, and the disorienting landscapes of austerity and ageing.
Armed with a wind machine, searing text, sonic chaos and ritual tremors, Hoffmann conjures a storm from the inside out. No solace. No resolve.
Just ridiculous and horrifying monotony until a fissure – shuddering open – towards possible release. A fizzing, visceral embodiment of crisis and catharsis, Wormhole persists. It shakes you. Bleeds. Trembles. Collapses. Re-forms.
As writer Diarmuid Hester puts it: "No sweeteners offered. This is how it is. No relief."
ABOUT CATHERINE HOFFMAN:
Described as an elemental weather system Catherine takes an interdisciplinary approach to her work using text, music, choreography, video and participation - sitting in between live art, cabaret and performance. In a DIY approach and usually with absurdism she tackles personal, autobiographical material to shine a light on social issues.
Most of her work could be seen as some kind of humiliating act, revealing aspects such as shame, guilt, poverty, loss, gynaecological and mental health. She ventures into vulnerable terrain using humour and irreverence as a tool, to open up dialogue, embracing the desire for collective healing in our challenging contemporary lives.
Mainly creating solo shows as well as interactive intimate works, she also collaborates with Florence Peake and has shown in festivals, theatres, art galleries, cabaret events, on night buses, in bars and clubs throughout the UK and Europe.
In 2023 she created an immersive version of ‘Wormhole of our Formation’ using VR 360 film at UCA in Canterbury supported by ACE, the Hi3 Network, Wysing Arts centre and Cambridge Junction. In 2022 she toured ‘Cyst-er Act’ to Germany, to Summerhall at the Edinburgh fringe festival and the Southbank centre. In 2017/18 she toured the UK with ‘Free Lunch with the Stench Wench’ – a solo exploring shame in relation to class and poverty. Her texts ‘Whatever happened to the Glory Days’? And ‘Ten tips on being Feckless and Poor..’ are printed by LADA and Unbound books - www.cathoffmann.com
ABOUT ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE APOCALYPSE:
Entanglements of the Apocalypse is a transdisciplinary programme exploring queer and trans imaginaries of world-building in response to apocalypse(s). Grounded in ongoing research, the programme critically reinterprets the idea of apocalypse through queer and trans lenses, actively resisting capitalist and colonial narratives that frame apocalypse as a singular or final event.
Drawing inspiration from Oxana Timofeeva’s concept of apocalypse as a cyclical and continuous condition, this project engages with apocalypse as an ongoing transformative process that shapes collective memory and artistic practices.
Led by independent curators and artists, the programme challenges conventional narratives around ‘the end,’ creating spaces for dialogue, experimentation, and collective expression. The programme imagines exhibition-making as an inclusive and collaborative learning process, working closely with queer communities to build spaces of resistance, care, and speculative creativity. Through radically intimate and emergent methods, this initiative uses apocalyptic thinking as a means of envisioning alternative and transformative present and future.
The continuing programme will unfold over the following six months with a series of exhibitions, public gatherings, workshops, talks, and experimental learning events at VSSL Studio and across community spaces - FURTHER ARTISTS AND CONTRIBUTORS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON - The programme invites audiences to collectively engage with post-apocalyptic thinking, queer world-building, and trans-led imaginaries that centre care, pleasure, hybridity, and embodied knowledge.
www.vssl-studio.org