Constructing The Self  is comprised of new art works, music and audience participation, led by the Black Hole Club group of Midlands artists in celebration of the creative life of David Bowie. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues as we explore Bowie’s world. Starman, iconoclast, Blackstar: David Bowie remains the ultimate self constructed pop icon.

Extended to a one week installation by audience demand, this event is raising funds for Cancer Research UK. 

ARTISTS:

Kate Spence – ‘Put On Your Red Shoes’ . David Bowie’s constant re-creation of his onstage identity is something shared with Kate who uses costume and personas to re-create herself in her performance work. This is an invitation to dance in a communal celebration of the man who raised the bar, and brought true strangeness and experimentation into the mainstream in a way few ever achieve. 150 pairs of red shoes will be available to dance in.

John Bradburn -‘The Mountain of Dead Selves’ is a six panel video work exploring the psychic states at play in the construction of Bowie’s 1976 album, Station to Station. The work explores Bowie as mystery school as much as art school.

Jaime Jackson & David Checkley – ‘This way or no way. You know I’ll be free, Just like that bluebird. Now, ain’t that just like me?’ The duo are evolving an installation using Chroma blue, responding to Bowie’s use of the colour blue as a metaphor in his song writing. The work considers his early interest in Tibetan Buddhism (where blue is a symbol for space) and the blue bird motif in Lazarus, from Blackstar.

Ollie Macdonald-Brown – ‘In An Attempt To Realise the Starman’ is an observation and interaction with the fluid nature of David Bowie and his multiple and interchanging personae. The roll of film used to shoot the images expired in 1971, the year of the release of Hunky Dory.

David Poole: ‘Starman (Waiting In The Sky)’  is a video projection and installation. By remixing appropriated audio-visual material from the 1969 Moon Landing, which was preceded by the release of ‘Space Oddity’ by ten days, the piece references the “cut up lyrics” of Bowie’s early albums and the space imagery that recurs throughout his career. As the viewer looks up at the astronaut floating in the space, it becomes an almost devotional object or shrine to The Man Who Fell To Earth, honouring a visionary who has ascended back to the stars.