Chantel Foo

Lives and works in London, UK

Artist statement

I am a queer and disabled Chinese Singaporean artist whose practice is deeply rooted in the exploration of the body, movement, and writing. I was trained in traditional Chinese Dance from a young age, and my movement style exists at the sticky tension lines where a body’s histories and undoing gather, to come apart. In recent work, I have been finding ways to integrate elements of the dance form I grew up with, reclaiming it after much self-erasure in order to protect my body from a predominantly white gaze. These power dynamics are concerning to my politics as a performer, and over time, much of my practice has also become strategies of defiance– such as obstructing faciality and disrupting disciplinary boundaries. My engagement with the concept of choreopolitics (articulated by André Lepecki) informs these strategies as I seek to envision queer and crip liberation, challenging conventional norms and imagining alternative, embodied, futures. Through interdisciplinary exploration, including textiles, sound, livestreaming, Real Game Play, movement, and writing, I build and interrogate “glitch spaces”, activated by questioning the strictures of discipline in our world, and the desiring of a space distinct from the codes of ‘order’ and movement. Tethered to these explorations are my politics as a person of the Chinese diaspora who straddles both privileged and marginalised identities. For example, my latest work-in-progress, BRIGHT HOT R-AGE during my residency with FABRIC...

Artwork