pale news

performance (play) | 2016

Pale News, made in collaboration with Imran Perretta, commissioned by the Chisenhale Gallery in London, is a theatrical script and musical score, a political play devised by the artists in collaboration with local LGBTQ community members. Performed at the Bandstand in Victoria Park, Pale News responds to the history of the park, often referred to as the ‘People’s Park’. As the first purpose built communal green space in London, Victoria Park was established in 1845 to promote public health for local factory workers whilst also increasing their productivity.

By incorporating plants as props, the set draws on the park’s tradition of distributing free flowers to the working classes during the 19th century. Further reflecting on the park’s history as a site of political activism, Pale News explores the potential of collective action in a contemporary climate marked by division.

Drawing its formal aspects from European oratory traditions and Bengali folk- theatre, the performance is enacted alongside a live musical score played on the harmonium. Comprised of news articles and personal stories, Pale News presents individual and collective experiences of precarious housing and labour conditions and the normalization of xenophobia, particularly in the post-Brexit moment.

At the intersection of these concerns around gender, sexuality, ethnicity and religion, Pale News reflects on pinkwashing. In this phenomenon LGBTQ rights are used to market a seemingly liberal attitude of tolerance, but in fact further marginalise local minority groups within current anti-immigrant and Islamophobic discourses.