Fucked-Up Art

As part of the curated program at Hangar Artistic Research Center, we had the opportunity to visit groundbreaking artist Ângela Ferreira. Her work critically examines ongoing legacies of colonialism and postcolonialism in contemporary society. Architecture often serves as her entry point for research into the erasure of memory.

Before entering her studio, we were cautioned to tread carefully. The space for movement was limited—we had to navigate around a table stacked with catalogues and a sculpture resting on trestles before finding ourselves gathered around another table, surrounded by sketches of past and upcoming installations.

The sculpture we passed was a model of a social housing project. It was intended to be carried through the streets like a relic during procession—yet it was never meant to be religious. This anti-sculpture, non-relic, unfinished architectural model, this ephemeral artwork, was not to be worshipped, but celebrated. It was imagined as part of a parade where art becomes a vessel for protest. Not a protest to enact direct change, but one that embodies an attitude—a way of living outside the boxes.

Back in 2011, when we presented …but now it needs to be done… at the Embassy Gallery in Edinburgh, a panel discussion with Harry Weeks, Lecturer in Art History at Newcastle University, brought an unexpected framing to our work. He referred to our sculptures—into which we inscribed prayers devoted to Virgin Mary—as relics. Our intention, however, had never been to convey religious devotion. Rather, we aimed to evoke trauma inherited through the concept of original sin. During performances held at sites charged with personal, repressed, anti-historical memory, we sought to transfer the energy of trauma into objects used as props—penances that retained traces of that emotional charge. A kind of artistic teleportation, infusing aura into matter.

Fucked Up Attitude 1

Marie de Brugerolle—curator, author, and inventor of Post Performance Future—would probably describe our performance props as “Fucked-Up Objects.” Their identity is polysemic and ambivalent: tool, prop and sculpture. As sculptures (before and during the performance), as staged objects (within the practice), and in their afterlife (at rest), they inevitably fail. They are quintessential post-performance objects: polymorphic, self-performing, dysfunctional deviations from their original intent.

Our art, then, embodies a “Fucked-Up Attitude”—ready to fight the status quo in any space, at any time. We do not go outside the box—we deconstruct it.

Fucked Up Attitude 17