VSSL Studio is excited to present The Pest Confessional, an intimate performance for small groups by Hannah Fair, as part of the Entanglements of the Apocalypse programme.
Join us on Sunday, the 19th October, from 2-6 PM at VSSL Studio.
PLEASE NOTE:
- Each allocate slot will run for approximately 20mins.
- Bookable time slots are available: On the hour, 20 past, and 40 past the hour between 2pm (inclusive) & 6pm
- Each performance time has 4 allocated tickets.
- Please arrive promptly 5 mins before your allocated time slot.
ABOUT THE PEST CONFESSIONAL:
Rats. Mice. Bed bugs. Flies. Roaches. Fleas.
We are in an era of mass extinction, characterised not just by unprecedented socioecological loss, but one of unwanted abundance. The Pest Confessional invites attendees to reckon with everyday and ambivalence more-than-human entanglements.
It provides space for visitors to anonymously share their experiences of unexpectedly or unwillingly sharing their homes with nonhuman others. Stories of disgust, fear, humour, and joy are all welcome. Embrace the chance to confess your pests and be freed from the shame of domestic infestations.
The Pest Confessional is a solo interactive experience, so if others are already at the venue there may be a wait. The duration of the experience is determined by the participant and the stories they wish to share.
The Pest Confessional a secular and non-judgemental space for contemplating social and environmental ethics.
If participant consent is given, confessions will be recorded as part of a wider research project into the impacts of domestic infestations: Situating Pests: Impacts, Disgust, Expertise, and Responsibility (SPIDER).
ABOUT HANNAH FAIR:
Hannah Fair is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, specialising in contemporary environment-society relations.
At the heart of her research are questions of how to live well with anthropogenically transformed and transforming natures. She critically situates her work in the overarching framework of the Anthropocene and draws upon decolonial, feminist, queer and experimental more-than-human approaches.
Her latest project, ‘SPIDER', explores this through the lens of domestic pests and housing precarity.
www.hannahfair.co.uk
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
ABOUT VENUE ACCESS:
VSSL Studio is accessed from Resolution Way via a raised, fenced path. There are 3 steps. Step free access can be found via the carpark on Tidemill Way. The studio entrance door is wide and wheelchair accessible. There is an accessible toilet within the studio block.