Full Transcript for Type-casting yourself with artist Harold Offeh

to learn from a recent podcast interview that when he was afflicted by insomnia as a child, he would end up watching the Open University on ‘telly’, which is where he first encountered the pioneering cultural studies professor Stuart Hall. I too had the occasional bout of insomnia. But growing up in New York City, this meant watching the Robin Byrd show when I was far too young. Brits are just so much classier than us Americans. Yeah, so we also share the status of being immigrants here in the UK. It's not really a topic that I've addressed personally in my own work, but certainly one that Harold addresses, and funnily enough on the web, we’re respectively labelled as being not British artists. But in your case, Harold, Ghanaian and in mine, American, which is just so weird, like I don't know how you feel like maybe that's my first question is how do you feel when you encounter that when you when you self-Google, as we all do, when you see that? Are you like, should I somehow get that amended? Or do you feel, yeah, how do you feel about that? Harold Offeh Hi, Oriana. [Laughs] What an introduction. Oh, my god. OF Thank you so much for being here. HO Thank you for asking me. Wow, that's just amazing. Yeah, you're right, the Google labelling. Yeah, I have thought about that. I have actually thought, should I get that changed? Because it's, you know, like, I don't even have a Ghanaian passport. I mean, I was born there. I mean, I could, and I don't have Ghanaian citizenship, like, but I could get that. So I kind of feel like I’m a bit, for all those Ghanaian artists, many of which I know, they must see that and say, what’s he playing at? Like, yeah, it's weird. In many ways, it's kind of reflective of that kind of, sort of, I think that thing of being an immigrant in terms of, you know, where do I sit? How do I identify how do I articulate my, my position because it's always like, I was still slightly nervous about the articulation of Britishness. I mean, I am British. I've got a British passport. But so like statehood wise, but I've got a sort of cultural ambivalence towards identifying myself as that, partly because of the you know, the historical implications of that. But yeah, so that's maybe why I haven't changed it because I'm just like, I don't know. How do you feel though? OF It's just weird because it's like, I'm not like, if I have any reputation at all as an artist it is not in in the United States. Like, it's just weird because it almost seems to imply she's, she's an American artist. She has something that happened in America, and like, my artistic career happened entirely here. So yeah, that's just the only thing that feels weird about it. Because I I feel very American in terms of like nationality. I have an American passport. I lived there until I was 21. So, yeah, I'm approaching nearly like, half my life in the UK. So. But it's somehow, you know, even though half my life has been spent here, I still don't feel like, and I have a British passport and everything, I don't feel entitled to claiming Britishness as my identity, but anyway. Yeah. Stuart Hall, on telly. That must have been? That must have been great. HO Yeah, I mean, I guess at the time, I wasn't really thinking about, I just, I was one of these, I was just very curious, I think as a kid. And I was a, I mean, it was this point in the 80s, where there weren't many, like, black people or people of colour on British TV anyway. So like, you know, apart from Trevor McDonald, who used to read the ITV News, or Maurice Stewart, who read the BBC News sometimes, so you know, but when you see like, you know, Black people on TV, it was like a sort of moment. So I think that's why I was like, who is this guy? And he's like, Oh, he's, like a professor, you know. And I think he also had a very just engaging kind of delivery. You know, there was something about that, that I just found sort of intriguing. Yeah, but it wasn't, you know, I mean, it makes me sound like some sort of precocious, intelligent kid, I was just curious about it. I mean, I would stay up and watch like, shows, or sneak down and watch shows that I shouldn't have, you know, like, I don't know, sort of dramas, or Midnight Caller, like these American, 80s American shows, or Miami Vice and things like that. So... OF I know, I figured as much from from the content of your work, but yeah, no, you're, yeah, the input isn't all highbrow. I'm curious, though, about your relationship to the roles that you play in your work? And how, you know, I've put it in a certain way in the introduction, but how would you articulate that relationship? I know, it must be different for different projects... HO I think, broadly, I think these these roles are, I mean, in some sense you might see them as kind of tools or containers, or means of kind of exploring certain situations and histories, I think, is what I've come to reconcile them as. I mean, it wasn't necessarily what I saw them as, initially when I was sort of first starting as an artist. But maybe again, it's something linked to kind of childhood in the way that I was very much in my imagination as a kid. So like, lots of play acting, and I was obsessed with like, Dynasty and Dallas, and I pretend to be Sue Ellen, you know, and Dominique Devereaux, and people like this. But in a way I think that in a way that sort of, you know, kids do that and obviously some adults do that, it's a way of positing yourself in a kind of situation. So it's you know, to academicise it, you know, it's a kind of methodology in terms of like that, that idea of trying to kind of think through a narrative or history of situation by in a way situating yourself within it in, you know. And I think when I first started, you know, in art school, to finally kind of reconcile, like, how I might go about kind of making art, you know, because I think initially it was, you know, it was like, oh, you know, to make art I have to like, there are

certain forms I have to adhere to. I mean, it wasn't really till the end of art school that I realised, oh, I could just use the things I really enjoy, like all this kind of like pop culture and like, role playing and, you know, I had a bit of a kind of amateur theatre kind of background, and all of those things I could, you know, I'd sort of allowed myself to kind of validate as sort of proper kind of tools for really exploring, you know, serious subjects and areas that had kind of critical weight. So yeah, I think in a lot of the projects, there is this kind of sort of role playing, whether I'm adopting a character or not, or even if I'm kind of facilitating a workshop, I often think that it's the kind of form of role-play that it's a sort of being enacted. But yeah, they’re definite, like, strategies for posing questions and playing, I think, as a way of, you know. OF Yeah, I really relate to what you're saying completely. Yeah, there's something in, in your work and my work that's, like, reminds me of being, you know, making, getting out of the VHS camera as a kid and like, you know, doing reenacting a pop video or doing, you know, version of myth, the Greek myth, you know, like Medusa with my friends or something? I don't know. And, yeah, I think, yeah, there's a kind of naive playfulness, it's really fun. Yeah. So it's enjoyable to watch you kind of enjoying yourself doing those things? Yeah. Are you gonna say something?  HO No, I was just gonna say, but I think, you know, the thing for me is that it's always that those things are often kind of dismissed as like, oh, you're just messing about or like, you know. Whereas actually, I think that that play is really super important. And I think it's kind of rooted in like, a kind of cultural and intellectual curiosity. Like, I'm sort of really fascinated by the commitment it takes to copy or reenact something to restage something. Like, there's like an investment in culture. You know, even when kids are kind of doing, you know, I don't know, you know, recreating like a Katy Perry video, or whatever it is, they might be doing, you know, it's like, there's obviously an attachment and an engagement with that original source. But there's a negotiation of their own situation. So like, you know, how they do the costuming or, you know, even if they're using like cameras and how they're setting that up. And I think that often, that's just too easily dismissed. And I think, you know, I just think that what that activity represents should be encouraged, because it's, it is about cultural curiosity. And I think we need more of that, not less, you know, I just, I find how that's just easily dismissed within yeah, within sort of culture as not having value is sort of really yeah, deeply problematic. Particularly when there are certain certain bodies or identities that often lean into that because it allows it affords them space. So, you know... OF Yeah, absolutely, I’m thinking like, as you said, you kind of played the character, like the female characters in soap operas that you were watching. And so yeah, I could see that being enabling for you. Could you talk more about that a little bit? HO Yeah. No, I mean, I think I think you're right, it was enabling. I think it's just... OF How was it responded to, like in your family? I don't know, that’s very personal. HO I mean, there's lots of weird things when I look back at my childhood, because, you know, I'm, you know, I mean, my mother, my mom's quite young, she had me when I was 19, when she was 19, sorry, not, I mean when she had me. OF I understand what you meant. HO She was nice. I mean, I always thought she was kind of a strict West African, Ghanaian Mother, you know, she, looking back she was like, super slack and, in many ways, super, super liberal. Because she let me watch all of these shows, which and I remember like this, the primary, the school that I went to in North London, there are lots of like, these middle class white kids, and I would talk about watching these shows. No, we're not allowed to watch that, we’ve got to go to bed at seven. And like, I think, you know, Dynasty and Dallas were on at like 8 pm, so like, past people's bedtimes. And we would watch the shows together. And she would, you know, she would laugh at me, like pretending to be like, you know, Sue Ellen. And I would always have like, a pretend whiskey glass or something, like. So yeah, I don't know, when I look back on it. Yeah, there was a kind of maybe a weird permission structure that was kind of created just allowing me to kind of do these things. Um, yeah, but I think all of these things really just fed my imagination. And I think in a way that that sort of, allowed me later when I went to kind of, you know, kind of secondary school and had again, I'm always really aware of the power of education, I was really super lucky to go to a really liberal arts focused, comprehensive school in North London. Like the school that I went to didn't have a school uniform, which is really rare here in the UK. Again, that's something I was not particularly aware of until I spoke to other people, particularly my generation who were like, what? He went to school without a uniform? But I think it was indicative, the school was of a kind of, kind of ‘60s, liberal education kind of reforms that that happened in in a lot of inner city schools, particularly in London. But by the 80s, with Thatcher, you know, it had been sort of stripped back and it's interesting, the school that I went to now does have a uniform, and it's sort of… OF They changed their ways.  HO Yeah. The Michael Gove reforms. So, yeah, I think I was just sort of tracking things back, I think I was fortunate enough to have the structures that allowed me, that have facilitated my creativity and imagination and playfulness. And, you know, I mean, our high school plays that we did, we like we did Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle, things like

that. It's just like, you know, which is kind of super ‘bourgie” for like a, you know, like, a sort of, you know, and a very ordinary kind of, like, you know, state school. OF So yeah, I have another question kind of about, you know, the way that playful, performance, appropriation, whatever you want to call it can be dismissed as being not serious. There's another aspect to it, that it's not dismissed but critiqued or maybe considered a bit worrying, like, especially when it comes to race. So like to, or maybe also with gender, like have you faced any... yeah, how do you face that issue? Or what are your thoughts about that issue of like, cultural appropriation? Sorry to go from something really playful to something really heavy, but it's like, yeah, it's like, that really playful thing becomes really heavy when you start to worry about like, am I you know, is this inappropriate, or am I going to be cancelled? HO Maybe I'll approach it from just my own experience, like so, I mean, I did this whole body work about Hattie McDaniel and the Mammy archetype, you know, to be an actor, but to be fixed by, you know, just, you know, racism and racial stereotyping. And how she develops quite strict, pragmatic strategy of, you know, playing within the racial stereotype. And we often get a lot of criticism of her from, you know, civil rights activists and stuff. And so my way of engaging with that was to take on the stereotype and take on this idea of like, how to kind of articulate you know, that that that kind of Mammy archetype, which is so entrenched in kind of American culture and stuff, and yeah, so I was doing this talk at Ohio University, and there was a kind of senior African American painting professor and, and he just got super upset. He was like, look, you just can't do this. You know, this is, you know, this is part of the African American kind of narrative and story and, you know, you know, as someone who doesn't share that heritage can't, you know, you don't have a purchase on this. I mean, there were people, you know, Black people there who disagreed with him. But I mean, I was really aware of that kind of, like criticism in terms of I mean, I think and that, you know, I mentioned it, because I think, you know, his underlying critique was cultural appropriation and the cultural specificity of this material and sensitivity of this material. And it was a bit of a wake-up call, to me, actually, in terms of really thinking about what are the conditions by which one can engage with kind of cultural references that maybe exist outside of your immediate experience. And I guess I'd always thought about it through this idea of like, maybe slightly academically, like, you know, like referencing and quoting and respecting the source of material, you know, you always think about, like, kind of problematics of cultural appropriation where, you know, things are just kind of, like, taken and mixed, without necessarily giving just acknowledgment or regard to the kind of history and context in which they come from, and respect as well, you know. So I think about how that material’s, kind of, sort of handled, and I always thought that I was kind of, I was aware of that, and that's what I was hoping that I was doing. So it was, it was quite stinging to have someone say no, you know, you're just, like, you know, this isn't for you, you know, maybe there are some things that are just, you know, so I think that's kind of stayed with me really. OF Did that put an end to the project? Or what do you mean by it stayed with you? HO It didn't put it into the project. I mean, there were sort of several iterations of it afterward. And I mean, I haven't performed it in a while, a good long while now maybe, like, eight years or something. I mean, I still felt even after that, a bit ambivalent, and kind of, but I kind of felt like, somehow, maybe this is naive, but there's a kind of like, through the constant reiterations and playing out that I accrued a set of knowledge and experiences and perspectives, kind of on the work. And like I said, I mean, you know, that professor’s commentary is by no means that the dominant from African American academics or even curators that I've kind of worked with, who’ve been aware of that work and some have even shown that work as well. So but and, you know, I guess, in some ways, you know, it's easier to kind of say, well, that's just one person's kind of opinion, but I guess it just made me really realise that, you know, often, you know how, I guess it's that people sense of ownership of culture, you know, and I think, something that I do think about a lot, particularly because I, you know, we talked about this before, I do reference a lot of American culture, and African American culture a lot in my work, and you know, and obviously, that's not my heritage, and that's a very particular specific history. So, yeah, I'm sort of aware about my tangental kind of relationship to that material. But also, for me, as well, and they're not the Mammy projects, I'm talking about other things to do with kind of, particularly American and African American culture. It's just like, the kind of cultural hegemony of America. Which means that, you know, like, you know, growing up in the UK, and even, you know, cousins of mine that have kind of grown up in Ghana and Kenya or whatever, that particularly African American culture is like a kind of “hegemonic” Black culture. Like, I think it's, I can, you know, I've just been thinking about what's my purchase on that. Again, while that has a very specific history, you know, it's still the history and narratives that have also kind of helped to shape my identity even outside of the immediacy of being in in the US. So that sounds a bit all kind of very woolly and confused, but I think I'm still always still trying to really unpack that, you know, in the way that I'm sort of aware that maybe I'm thinking through a lot of these projects, my

cultural identification and how, for example, my sense of kind of Blackness or masculinity has been framed by, like the cultural hegemony of American culture. I think that's what I'm sort of trying to say, OF Yeah, that's very succinct. HO What’s my kind of my purchase on it really? And, and maybe sometimes that will manifest itself as cultural appropriation. I hope not. It's something that you know, it's the sort of thing that will keep me up at night. Was I not really doing that? And, and maybe for some people, it will. And there's some aspects of that I don't necessarily know how to kind of combat. So, in some ways, I mean, I think, you know, when I'm thinking about, you know, I guess, there's often a discussion about kind of, like, white appropriation of kind of Black culture or whatever. And, you know, that's often I think people are often very vigilant and in terms of kind of, you know, policing, sort of that. It’s weird I had a conversation yesterday with a student about white girls teaching twerking on tik tok. She was like, What do I do with that Harold?  OF I can see how you be the perfect person to come to with that question, though. HO Yes. I was happy to receive it and we ended up sharing the material, because I was like, well, what were they doing it? Like, what are they? You know, like, you know, anyway. [Laughs] I'll stop there. OF I don't know that reminds me of your Snap like a Diva a video and social practice workshop. I think you, did you instruct people on how to do the snap? or? HO Yeah, I mean, that's great. That's based on again, maybe more cultural appropriation? OF Or no, no. I think it's so interesting, because with that particular workshop, and you can kind of elaborate on exactly what it entails, because I will not do as good a job as you will of describing it. But I feel like it's permissive to have you engaging people of various identity positions in an act of cultural appropriation that's like, your, you know, who you are enables that are kind of like liberates. And I don't know if that's problematic. But yeah, there's something that's, that's freeing, I don't know. Like, I I wanted to be there and be permitted to do to do that. Yeah. HO Yeah, I mean... OF Actually, I don't think I would have been aware of it as problematic in like, whenever you did it, but now, now I don't know maybe because of cancel culture being so heightened and these kinds of politics being so, so heightened in practice. Now, I feel, I would feel very nervous about it. But I think if I had been in that setting at that time, I would have gladly and been excited about doing it. Anyway, yeah. HO Well, I mean, that piece was kind of informed by that. I mean, so yeah, Snap like a Diva is sort of does sequence in the Black filmmaker Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied, which is this like really beautiful, like, kind of like elegy to kind of queerness from the early ‘90s. Really amazing film, but there's this sequence where he's like, sort of breaking down the kind of lexicon of like, snapping and insignificance in like sort of Black gay culture. And it really struck me how sort of pedagogical it was in terms of like this, this move means this, this movement that this means, and I just thought that that'd be really interesting as a kind of workshop, but so an entry point into his practice. And you know, I was just really interested in why he structured it in that way. That was very much about kind of informing the audience about this vernacular, like language, and it reminded me, I think of, I can't remember what the piece is called, but there's this Adrian Piper piece [Funk Lessons], I'm constantly just looking Adrian Piper anyway, but where she teaches people to disco dance, I've can't remember what that thing which I like, which was one of these works at art school that actually made me realise it's like, oh, fuck, I can just like, you can do a work that uses disco, and, like, popular culture, and kind of like, and, and that work, you know, the kind of dynamics of that work, you know, where she was basically teaching white people to disco dance. And again, I kind of thought was really interesting in terms of how it positions participants in into a relationship or a conversation with Black culture. But I think I was very aware of starting out by showing a clip of the film and really like speaking to, like, you know, like, this comes from a particular place, that, you know, that, you know, none of us are kind of particularly accessing, but, you know, I guess in a way, like I made maybe a lot of my things, it's very naive sort of fanboy, but it's kind of like, this is kind of, there's a rich cultural language and referencing that is emerging out of this particular time in this particular kind of culture that I think deserves to be explored and kind of engaged with, you know, it's kind of like, I don't know, it's like, I mean, maybe a cultural sort of weird, bizarre equivalences like, you know, you know, do I have access to like, you know, Heidegger who's like, a problematic philosopher, you know, but or Derrida or all that, or any of those other... OF But you engaging with that doesn't mirror, or doesn't mirror the wider kind of social… the wider I don't know, what's the word I'm looking for? Racial bias, it's like, structural racism. So, yeah, which, which means that, you know, reverse racism doesn't exist, right. So because your appropriation of their work wouldn't be mirroring the, you know, structural, the structure of racism, the wider structure, therefore, it's okay. Like, that's not a problematic appropriation at all. HO I just need to work on my Heidegger performance workshop. OF Yes.  HO In drag. OF You heard it here first!  HO It’s coming.  OF  I hope the curators are listening. Yeah, so I talked in the introduction about how your work doesn't entail like, confessional kind of self-disclosure, or kind of a statement of like, claiming an identity. It's

playing with pre-existing archetypes and mythology. So like, is that a conscious choice or strategy or, like, is, do you, you know, how do you feel about like, a more confessional practice? Like, is there a reason why you wouldn't engage with it? Or do you like any of it? Or? HO I mean, I definitely, yeah, I mean, I like I just don't know, it's a mixture of never thinking, whether I have anything that interesting to say, but kind of emerges from by, like, I said, maybe and so conversely, perhaps not being brave enough to kind of do that. But that, you know, there's certainly that mode of the kind of compression is incredibly powerful. And I'm, like, super drawn to, to kind of, you know, works like that. Possibly as well, because, you know, like, art school I was always sort of told that that kind of work wasn't really very valid, you know, like, just the kind of sort of, like, myth of objectivity, like it was too subjective or it's too personal. You can't make it too personal, you know? So for me, there's something really like transgressive about somebody that's really going for it, you know, and yeah, and using that kind of, like personal history and biography as a way into, as a way of articulating or speaking to either wider social kind of histories or emotions or psychological states, I think is the incredible mode. But yeah, I mean, I think perhaps I'm just sort of like, I have just a need for a bit more kind of distancing perhaps. OF  Yeah, I get that impression. Like, yeah, there's like, kind of, I never thought of it as, oh, he’s maybe not brave enough to do it. I never would have like, assumed that would be your answer. But yeah, they're just a sense of like, wanting to maintain a level of privacy or just I think it's quite funny. The idea that I don't know, like, my life's not that interesting. [Laughs] Yeah. But yeah, also, it sounds like maybe listening to those prohibitions, or taking them on like, even though you might think that work is brave, or want to watch it, but kind of having a sense of, I'm not, I was told not to do that. I mean, not that you're just kowtowing to authorities. HO I'm still unpacking a lot of my art school experience. I mean, that's, yeah, and unraveling kind of things that were said, or, or kind of orthodoxies at the time that were like, regulated how I might have made work. So yeah. OF  I think in your, this is what I want to say about it, is like, in your work, I feel like your appearance plays like the disclosing role, or, or it's almost like a, I don't know if ‘ruse’ is the right word, or it's like something, a surface on to which the audience projects things, like in the piece that you did in Brazil. You know, it's, people assumed you were Brazilian. [Laughs] And, yeah, so it's like, I feel like your work plays a lot with the expectations that others have of you based on your appearance, as opposed to you confronting people with the reality of your life and the reality of your identity. It's about this, yeah, the expectations and playing with them and affronting them or, yeah, in different works, it plays out in different ways. Like that really early video with the self-help stuff. It's like your identity plays such a big role in like the understanding of that work. And raises questions about like, who that material that you're referencing, like self-help kind of material, who is that for and who, and what does it mean to be not the maybe not the target audience for it, but still trying to engage with it? Anyway, not really a question. But please respond. HO Just thinking about those two works, really. Haroldinho which I made in Brazil, yeah and Four ways to feel amazing. Yeah, I mean... OF  FYI, for those of you listening, you can find out more about these works on Harold's amazing website, HaroldOffeh.com. Is that right?  HO Yes, that's right.  OF  It's really great website. Sorry, that's another podcast: artists' websites. I might be doing a spin-off of Multiple Os, which is a spin-off of The O Show and I might, you know, spin-off again into artists' websites.  HO Let’s talk about the good ones. My favourite at the moment, just while we're on the subject is Sondra Perry's. OF  I haven't seen it. HO It's really beautiful. Like, you open it up and it's just got this like little video of like these amazing silver foil snails on a trackpad, just like moving. And she's got like a little message. Basically, I'm paraphrasing, like, “I hope you're well” like, you know, it's just really beautiful. I mean, it unpacks and unfolds. So like but yeah, that's, that's the website I want at the moment. But yeah, I'm obsessed with artist websites, actually. You can invite me back for that. [Laughs] OF Aces. HO I suppose I should get back to my work. I was just really thinking. I was laughing when you were talking about that, particularly the Haroldinho work because that, I think, really I did a residency in 2003 in Rio de Janeiro, which was extraordinary with Gasworks. And I think that really just changed my life. I mean, A it was just obviously a really amazing opportunity to experience this different, different culture. But I think, just in the way that particularly travel does, but it's a kind of particularly an international residency in terms of just reframing my sense of self. And the reason I made that Haroldinho piece is because it just really defined my like whole experience of being in Rio and being misidentified. But like, I've never been misidentified as a native. Yeah, just having these really absurd encounters. Including this, this really crazy situation where I was like having an argument with this old Brazilian woman in a supermarket. And she wouldn't believe that I wasn't from this area of Brazil called Bahia, which is where a lot of African slaves were. So it's the kind of home of kind of Afro Brazilian culture, Salvador da Bahia, I think, has the biggest black population outside of Africa as a city, you know,

that's kind of like, you know, bigger than Atlanta bigger than the, you know, it's kind of like, it's, it's kind of huge. And she thought I was from Salvador and she was just, she wouldn't believe me. I can't speak Portuguese. I was saying to think she thought I was somebody that she knew or she was... OF  She's speaking to you in English? HO No, in Portuguese!  OF How did you know what she was saying? HO Well, she kept on saying, Ah Bahiana, Salvador and mentioning people's names like, Fernando De Savil. I don't know. And she kept doing the thing about my face, Bahiana? I was like, then I said, Ghana, she's said Ghana, oh. But she's, like, super, anyway, it was just freaky. I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying to convince somebody that I'm not a native, this is weird. Like, I'm just so used to being kind of like othered that I'm not, the idea of being nativised, I don't even know what the word is. And I think it was one of the first occasions in which I actually, this goes back to the start of the show, where I realised actually how British I was. Like, all the time, I just was like, Oh, my God, I'm just like, through just micro things. Like, you know, there's like, a whole different relationship to touching and sensuality in Brazil, like, people are like, super ‘handsy’, but not in a creepy way. I mean, just like, sort of, you know, you know, a stranger, if they're talking to you, they'll put your hand, their hand on your shoulder as a way of making, you know, and I just be like, Oh, okay. And being like some really uptight. [Laughs] So yeah, I think, you know, so the work really became a way of kind of trying to kind of engage with this sense of kind of dislocation, in terms of like... And obviously, Brazil has this massive kind of, like, if you talk about African American culture of Afro Brazilian culture, and, you know, the whole kind of legacy of kind of slavery and racism in Brazil is seriously fucked up. But, yeah, anyway, so I think that work for me, I think really allowed me to really think through also my relationship in terms of positing myself in relation to these wider cultural histories, thinking through my own personal and social, even political kind of investment in, like, my identity, my, you know, my sense of self, my sense of like, because I was kind of thinking, where do I actually belong? It's kind of like, you know OF: [Laughs] Yeah I can kind of relate to that because I mean when I’m in New York, I suddenly feel very British. I’m like, where’s the queue? I can’t possibly interrupt those people. Or, I just become very very polite and unassuming. But in London I’m the first person to get into an argument or be aggressive on the bus. It’s just an effect of being or feeling out of place but within one’s own context that comes from being… anyway.  HO: That’s brilliant, I love that. I mean, sorry, you also I mentioned Four ways to feel amazing as well, which is the kind of, yeah, which again was sort of me kind of performing to these self-help texts. But for some reason I've received a lot of these self-help texts at one point, people just gave them to me, I guess. Maybe I'd been projecting? OF  They thought you needed to help yourself? HO I think so. It was a point of crisis. I just became really obsessed with like, the language of them. And the way that there's kind of like, a, there's a kind of sense of sort of distilled like, really distilled and diluted kind of philosophy. So like taking like a kind of Buddhist practice and distilling it into something that was like, but I think for me, it's always this thing about how individuated everything was, so it was like, your personally responsibility to heal yourself, you're the only one, which is obviously true, you do have agency, that’s really, really kind of important. But I've kind of felt like it was really, kind of in the same way that I feel a little bit about mindfulness, I recently made a work about sort of mindfulness. But in a way, there's a kind of, like, this weird and problematic negation of the need for structural change, like so like, you know, like, all these things become really super corporatized. So it's your, you know, personal responsibility to... OF  Mcmindfulness. Yeah, there's a book called Mcmindfulness. HO ...to make yourself kind of happy, or to make yourself, well actually maybe, maybe just need to pay rise because working too much. Like it, maybe it's like a structural issue, like, but the emphasis is always on, like, you know, it's like A, being more efficient as a human being. So it's always in like, within this sort of, like, capitalist, kind of like rubric of like, you know, labour and efficiency and, you know... OF  And taking individual responsibility for your own wellbeing, as opposed to expecting society to play a bigger part in your wellbeing. HO Yeah, like, you know, we need society to kind of like, you know, like, maternity and paternity leave, you know, that these are huge things that will affect people's sense of wellbeing, but they're like state responsibilities. Yeah, okay, maybe breathing and meditating for 10 minutes, might help, but it doesn't negate that structural issue that is, that will really affect people, you know. So it's just, you know, I mean, I think in those both those kinds of works, I was really trying to kind of just trying to think through the problematics of like, the over focus on the individual. And like, you know, anyway, yeah. OF  They're very different.  HO Yeah, they are.  OF They're very different, but they're about, what connects them is something to do with your appearance and yeah, people's reactions to it in different contexts, or yeah, this kind of bringing together of your personhood with a context in which you don't belong or maybe or yeah, maybe assumed to not belong, but or assumed to belong, in the case of Brazil and then assume not to belong in the case of like self-help. HO Yeah, I think a lot of what I'm

doing is is basically sort of like, in a way, literally trying to materialise some of those concepts or ideas through my presence in a particular context. So with the self help things, it was like okay, just illustrating that kind of like, yeah, instead of using myself as a kind of, in a way illustration, or visualisation actualization, maybe that's a better word, of yeah, some of some of these ideas. And to sort of highlight the kind of absurdity, I hope, or the kind of disjuncture between, you know, often what's trying to be articulated and the actuality of someone embodying some of these things. OF  Yeah, do you, as a kind of aside, do you read any self-help? Or do you engage with self-help, like, at all? Like you said, people gave you those things? So it's not something you're seeking out? It's not something you engage? Is it something you've ever engaged with? You ever buy a self-help books? HO I have, I mean, after I was given a couple like, you know, 40 Ways to feel amazing, and then I became really interested in them. So I started to buy them because I really wanted to kind of, particularly the bite-size ones that were just like, you know, you're kind of daily, you know, you can just do one a day. It's partly just a way of really thinking through how they were kind of constructed and articulated/ OF  Did any of them that like particularly work for you? Any that you would particularly recommend to other people? Any recommended reading? HO No, not really. I'm never very good at like, keeping up sort of regimes, you know, like... OF  Well, you have, like, in your work regimes of making art you've kept up with quite well, yeah. HO I just mean, like, you know, like, exercise, breathing, or I've been trying to breathe, like, I have an app that, you know, tells me to breathe every two hours, like, and it has a pulsing. I just found it on the App Store. I get, like, I get little notice on my computer, like, time to breathe, Harold, and then you've got to take like a minute, and it has different breath. Like, ah, [demonstrates breathing] You know, that kind of thing. It does different rhythms. Okay, it's not just breathing out. Like, you know, you might say, but yeah, we'll see. It's probably just a novelty. I’ll probably give it up. OF  That's fascinating. Yeah. So yeah. Oooh, because that's like ringing bells, ringing rather unhappy bells.  HO I haven’t triggered you have I? OF No, don't worry about like, maybe I should give you a trigger warning about what I'm about to bring up? No, I don't. Oh, yes. This leads to the question, actually, which is: Do you ever get the criticism, the criticism about your work that like, you're dealing with race and sexuality, identity politics, but you're not facing the dark stuff? Like you're not like, I've had that criticism, like when I did this event, at the Tate in 2009, like, it was a feminist celebratory reenactment event. And I got the, in some of the feedback was like, where was the sexual assault? Where was the domestic violence? Maybe I should have put a trigger warning on that? You know, but it was like this, where was the, you know, the darker, I don't know, topics that feminism is expected to address. So yeah. Do you ever get that? HO I probably have, but I've certainly not had it articulated in the way that you're describing. But I could definitely see people applying that to my work. But I find that such a really weird, like, critique, because to me, I’d just be like, that's so much about you. I mean, it’s kind of ok. Well, I don't, I don't know. Well, I mean, that's just so deeply problematic in terms of a call for the work to be... OF  You, as this identity category have an obligation to deal with, you know, maybe the worst things that happen to that...[giggles] HO I mean, obviously, there’s a space for that, we, and, you know, I engage with works that kind of deal with that. And, for me, those underlying narratives and resonances are kind of sort of there, but... Yeah, I mean, I guess I've sort of consciously/unconsciously chosen not to, you know, foreground that stuff, but I don't see why someone, there's this idea that, you know, like, should prescribe that work that, you know, engages with race or gender or, you know, engages with like, feminist discourse should sort of have to articulate it through, like, through trauma and violence. I find that really deeply problematic in terms of like, I mean, I just want to speak to the person that asked that and be like... OF  Well it was so long ago, I don't even know if that record has been kept, like that form that was filled in. HO But do you know what I mean? I just kind of think, okay, that's fine. I mean, ok, you came to the event but isn't there a space for a number of different articulations and approaches? OF  I know, yes, but actually that kind of, that just really makes me think about your recent thing with the Tate with, for kids. And I love how you sort of introduced these artworks like by VALIE EXPORT and by David Hammons, and they are the kind of premise for, you know, kids at home, families at home to be doing various activities. And that work is, you know, those artists work, you know, and there they are, you know, feminist, anti-racist, you know, respectively, artists. But the way you present it is completely de-politicised. It's like, this is a fun family activity. There's even though like, I definitely, I love that! Like, I, that's another affinity we have was like this kind of relationship to feminists like, to second-wave feminist artists is like being sort of models for our practice, or being very inspirational to us. And, yeah, but it's like, in that context the politics is there, but it's also like removed in a sense, and it just playful... HO I think it’s also about just different forms of kind of articulation. In the like, I feel like a lot with those opportunities, it's really just about sometimes it's just about providing access

to providing resources. And like, you know, and I realised with, I spent ages trying to think about those artists, and obviously, you know, like VALIE EXPORT, David Hammons, they're like, two of my favourite artists and have really shaped my practice. But I also kind of realise, the reason I chose them as well is that, you know, they're not, you know, obviously, they're dealing with kind of, yeah, anti-racism and feminist discourses, but it's not only about that, it's like, those artists, there are formal aspects about their work... OF  And that's what that video is about. It's about taking those formal aspects of the work… HO Yeah. OF ...on their own, on that level for their own value. HO Yeah. OF It’s quite liberating, again, that’s what I want to say that about your practice, its permissive and liberating. HO I just wanted to introduce those works into, particularly for children and young people, that kind of lexicon of approaches, because as much as it is about those political discourses, they're also just playing. Like those, those artists are incredibly like, they're like, formal engagement is super interesting. And if, like, you know, for me VALIE EXPORT in those works, the way that she's like, annotating those buildings or annotating space, I mean, obviously, that has a kind of political resonence, but formerly it's super, really super, really interesting. And I think it’s also incredibly enabling as a way of engaging with your immediate environment, is to think about how you form shapes or mirror architecture or like, and if, if that provides a way in for like, a young person, a to engage with their immediate environment, immediate space, and, and then the wider resonance of them thinking about the specificity of their body in that space, and the political and cultural resonance in that space, then, yeah. But for me, it's also just, you know, like, I feel like, often with certain artists, they just become 'one-note'. You know, it's like, oh they’re the feminist artist and that’s what the work is about. It's like, well no! What else? There are other things going on with that work, you know. OF  And form is one that's like notoriously neglected... HO Absolutely. OF ...especially for artists that are categorised as identity-based? HO Exactly, exactly. So, I just thought that there was an opportunity there, you know, while I don't go into the kind of specifics of the kind of political context of their work, you know, I just want, I just want people to be aware of those, those are artists out there, you know. And it's like, if people want to go further and do the work. And, you know, there are some parents that will do that, and others that won't, but, you know, but it's also the idea that there's, there's a kind of currency of those artists’ work that operates on various levels that it's important to articulate. I mean, if we, you know, if we're talking about decolonizing the curriculum, I think it has to be just like, it

has to operate at many different levels and I think it has to be about kind of resourcing and facilitating a whole series of kind of references of artists’ practices that operate on many different levels and will have different registers and significant impact on those different registers. OF  I completely agree. I completely agree with what you’re saying, but I want to talk more about the connection between your work and feminist precedents, specifically to do with labour, and you're taking on the role of the toilet attendant or and the, the doorman. Is, I don't think doorman is what you use, the phrase is the term, is that the job title?  HO Yes, doorman.  OF That is the job. Yeah. And my question has to do with, and you did this within the context of, of a gallery within the Tate Modern, and also what was the actual place that commissioned? HO David Roberts Foundation. OF  The David Roberts Foundation. And I'm wondering about, again, this question of, I can see how you learned a lot from those, from taking on that role. And I can see I kind of link between this project of yours of being the toilet attendant and sort of, yeah, be doing an intervention within the role that is subsidiary to the purpose of the of the gallery, and like tweaking that role, and I mean, with Mierle Laderman Ukeles, which was, you know, her Manifesto of maintenance art. She turns, the kind of maintenance acts or like the kind of roles that a janitor or cleaning person would play, she does, she turns it into art by being an artist and doing that role, which is a little, which is very different from what you've done. And it's about recognising those kind of invisible forms of labour, like, that's the link. But yeah, maybe you could talk about I mean, what were you thinking of her work at all? Or was it completely different set of references you're responding to with that? Or was it? I mean, you've talked about as a continuation of the Mammy work in a way? Yeah. HO Yeah, I mean, it was, I think, because the initial invitation to do the show was linked into showing was showing objects from the Mammy. And then I was thinking about, you know, because the show was called “Services rendered”. And I was thinking about other forms of kind of contemporary kind of labour and service culture, linked in to kind of Mammy, you know, in terms of, you know, and but yeah, the Ukeles Laderman definitely was a reference, I think, when I was then thinking about... And, you know, one of my favourite pieces is Touch, sanitation, which is, you know, where she kind of like shakes the hand of the New York sanitation department, kind of, workers. And I mean, her whole practice, I think it's just like a kind of really interesting series of kind of strategies and political gestures and actions. But yeah, so yeah, I had really kind of thought through that, that thing about the role of the artist playing and I guess that's something I was also really aware of in going into that work. And

the negotiations. I worked with a curator, Selina Simmons, who was a freelance curator for the David Roberts Foundation that instigated that show, and then we negotiated with the Tate access to perform. I'm really amazed how they actually just let that happen. But... OF  It's interesting how things like often happen through this weird backchannel, like I really thought the Tate were like fully onboard and like co-commissioned it. I didn't get that it's, it's interesting how it's like why wouldn't they want to like, hey would have wanted to claim that as their like as their curatorial. Anyway, whatever. HO I mean, I really have to thank, it’s really down to kind of Catherine Woods, really, because we asked her and she just said, yeah, fine. And in she invited me to do a talk, which I did. You know, she just said it'd be really good to contextualise it, so let's do a talk. But, but yeah, I mean, I don't think there are many big institutional spaces that would allow like an externally initiated project, an externally funded project to be enacted in their space. A huge, huge kudos to her for like that. But, but yeah, so for me, really, it's a super speculative work. Like, I think I was really, really interested in Ukeles Laderman and, and what did it mean, for her to be in these positions, in these roles? And I felt like, so that work was the kind of connection between sort of performing the Mammy archetype in, with like a fat suit and in a kind of sort of like costuming, and the Ukeles Laderman work, which is so much about a kind of sort of immersion or positing within a particular kind of social kind of context and involved real labour as well, you know. And I felt like that was partly bridged by the fact that like, you know, like, my mom was a cleaner, like, she did that job. OF  I so was wondering, like, if that was, but I thought, like, that's a weird question to ask. What does your mom do? Like, it’s just... HO No, I mean, she's a dinner lady now. So she, but like, you know, for a long time, her job was like cleaning hospitals and offices. And as a kid, I used to go with her and help her and, you know, sort of change bins and things like that. So, um, and obviously, those, those are the sorts of jobs that kind of immigrants often do. You know, so in some ways I can I, you know, a lot of times, I feel like I have to create a permission structure for myself to kind of do these things. When I was a bit ambivalent about that work, and I mean, one of the negotiations for doing that work at the Tate was that we, I had to do some training. And they asked me to speak to the cleaning team, which is through, sort of subcontracted, but at the time, a lot of the cleaners at Tate Modern, sorry, this is, were from different parts of South America. So from Colombia, or somebody from Bolivia, and it was like, amazing, kind of. So I had to talk about what I was doing in the context of, you know, which is really interesting and I was really grateful for

that opportunity to kind of have that, that conversation. And, but then, yeah, so as part of the work, you know, I am sort of working in these positions, though, had, so I had a uniform, and I, you know, I'd had these kind of sort of this sort of training afternoon. And then I had like, the two days of performing in situ in the space, which was, yeah, really interesting. I sort of look back at that work and think, oh, my God, did I really do that, but it was really, I think, again, a bit like kind of invigilating, like, a real interesting study of human behaviours. And I was really aware of how little I did, how little gestures would really affect or shift people's kind of sort of behaviour and ways of kind of operating. So yeah, I mean, so I was a stationary toilet attendant at Tate Modern, for this work, and which is not a service that they offer. I mean, you know, it's the sort of thing you might get, like a, I don't know, at a sort of club or like, a high end hotel or something. And actually, it's so interesting. I think there's, you know, for me, one of the interesting things was, because it was at Tate Modern, and a lot of the visitors were international, it's really interesting to see how different cultures have different relationships to forms of service. So basically, I stood by the sinks and would offer people paper towels after they wash their hands. And I had like a tip tray. I had, like, you know, some, like hand moisturiser and things like that, that sort of people could, you know, and I'd be, I'd clean up after. So. Yeah, and again, I think that you know, I was really aware of how that work because of the nature of the service, really, the power dynamic within that particular work, because A people feel perhaps more vulnerable with the situation of being in the, in the toilet and that actually I've had actually had quite a lot of power. People were, I mean, and I'm just going to go to speak to the kind of cultural differences. You know, most British people were really super awkward. And just like an either they would see me and deliberately not wash their hands. So they didn't have to engage in the whole thing, or they'd be super awkward about like, you could sort of feel the palpable kind of tension as I , and again, I mean, it feels like I'm speaking to cultural stereotypes, but it's interesting. Americans were the ones who are most comfortable with that situation. Unknown Speaker  And I'd say about 75% of the tips that I got were from Americans.  OF That doesn’t surprise me.  HO You know, and I think that's, that's because there is a kind of service culture in terms of like, you know, yeah, people doing those kind of, sort of service jobs. I think people are kind of used to that particular dynamic, maybe just kind of... OF  I feel, I want to interject. HO Of course, go ahead.  OF I feel incredibly uncomfortable. And I do feel incredibly uncomfortable with bathroom attendants. And, but I definitely feel the obligation as an American to provide a tip and actually, I encountered a bathroom attendant in Florida last year, at of all places, like in a place in Miami, where there's a lot of street art [Wynwood Walls], like they have a display of graffiti art, like commissioned kind of murals. And there's a restaurant there. And yeah, I went into just like, take my kid to the toilet or something. And I was, I didn't have my wallet or anything, and there was a toilet attendant, and I was like, anyway, I don't know why I'm telling this anecdote. It's really not that interesting. I just want to say that, like, Americans might give the tip, but still feel awkward, and you may not even be reading the awkwardness for them. Like, I think they may be better at hiding it. HO Yeah, no, I mean, you may that's it, that's a really kind of good, good point about, yeah, the awkwardness, but it's also just things like eye contact, and sort of like, and also like, you know, often it was, you know, these American patrons that were the ones that sort of said, you know, how are you? You know, the courtesies or things or like, you know, like, if I had conversations, it would be people, you know. So that, that became kind of really interesting, I think, sort of really kind of marked a lot of... I mean, I think the difficulty for me was like, how do you beyond that kind of personal experience, that personal kind of in some ways felt like being a method actor or something. OF You know, what it is? It's like participant observation. It's like an anthropological study. But yeah, again that produces knowledge for the people outside of it, outside of that role. So like, you gain the experience of being in the role. And the audience, maybe some of them understood it was, or I think you said, one person kind of asked you if it was a performance. So some were a little bit savvy about the fact that we're participating in a social experiment in a sense. And others were oblivious, and just having to Yeah, live through this awkwardness or this cultural experience. What does it do? Like, you had to have this training and discussion with the staff, but what does that work really do for the people who, who have to do those jobs? You know, like, or, you know, as you were saying, your own mother does those jobs? Incidentally, I have myself looked into becoming a dinner lady, because part of me thought like, I spend so many hours preparing to be an art lecturer. Like, by the time I finished that, I'm probably earning minimum wage, so like, dinner lady hours would fit better in with my picking up my kids and stuff. So I'm like, maybe I should just switch to that? And like, I probably would earn the same amount of money. I don't know, actually, maybe it'll be slightly less? But I have thought about that as like, another avenue for employment, which kind of, yeah, so I want to ask you, firstly, about like, what does it do for you know, what does it do? Or what are you hoping it would do for them? Or, what,

did you have any ambitions, like, towards low wage workers? Like with the work? Or invisible workers? Yeah. HO Perhaps not directly, I didn't necessarily think, oh, this is kind of, you know, this is about, in the time that I was doing all this, is about making that invisible work visible in that way. I guess I would have felt that that's a bit of a sort of, like, bombastic kind of gesture. But that's perhaps one of the effects of the work, you know. I guess for me, I was very much focused on the idea of less a kind of comment on the people that really have to do that work every day than the sort of really intimate, with all the weird dynamics and, and the sort of, like, politics of operating in that space. And more really trying to materialise that for the kind of customers or audience you know, the people that, yeah, so yeah, I think it was less focused on the people that do the job or more on the, you know, service users really. Yeah, and really speaking to the dynamics of that experience and, you know, I mean that work led to, because I was interested in like these performing toilet attendants who like, seeing all these amazing YouTube videos. I say amazing, but weird. Like toilet attendants in Spain or in holiday resorts or sometimes in the UK in, you know, in clubs in Essex and stuff. And they will tend to be like, sort of like, you know, African immigrants and in order to generate more tips, they'd come up with these songs that, you know, like misogynistic songs for like getting tips out of these drunk guys, you know, sort of, like sort of sexy. And yeah, so they kind of will perform to the sort of drunk teenagers, guys in their 20s, and sort of generate sort of... It just sort of reminded me of minstrelsy.  OF Oh, right, this is kind of what it is like. HO I was like, okay? It was like a weird, I’d say they were doing like these weird self-parodying and, and like, you know, these guys from like Nigeria, and Senegal, and Ghana and singing these punany songs like Jamaican patois. And it's like, this is like, what? [Laughs] Yeah, so that was a subculture that a couple of times, I took that on... OF That tiny little facet of cultural production, the performance of being a toilet attendant. Yeah, that's a weird phenomenon. I can understand like the, you know, the attraction to investigating that. But yeah, I, it's interesting to hear you articulate that it is very much more about like, being the recipient of those things. And, but it makes me think about the wider like, you're talking about the fact that the, you know, the cleaning staff at the Tate were primarily South American immigrants. And like, if you think about that, in contrast to the curatorial staff, for example, like they would not be coming from there. I mean, obviously, it's a very difficult thing to actually implement structural change, like, that would probably entail like, asking people to give up their jobs on the basis of their politics, or, which most people won't do because they can't do, or yeah. Anyway, it's, these are the kinds of things I ended up thinking about from thinking about your work. So I think that's, that's quite good. [Laughs] HO I’m happy.  OF You're happy, good. I’m glad I’m making you happy. But yeah, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your responses. And it's been really amazing and fascinating and gives me loads of things to think about.  HO Thank you. Great to talk to you, Oriana. Yaye! OF I hope you enjoyed that lengthy and rich discussion between Harold Offeh and I. It really was lovely speaking with him. And we did talk for a very, very long time. That is an edited version of our discussion. I promise you I cut things, I really did. It was hard to cut anything else though.  [Next week on Multiple Os song] OF Next time on Multiple Os, I'll be speaking with none other than Lois Weaver, who has been mentioned not once, but twice on prior episodes of this very podcast, because she is an extremely influential figure in the field of performance art. [Multiple Os Themesong] OF Until then, be sure to accept yourselves unconditionally, and others. We're all just fallible human beings!