she/her
Costume Thyself Accordingly (rites of becoming under the stairs), is a live performance and installation work that reimagines a backstage dressing room beneath a staircase. The work merges video projection, photography, collage and transformed domestic objects to create an immersive, theatrical environment revolving around three distinct characters. Ultimately, the work explores the unstable relationship between performer and costume, inviting viewers into a world that is both uncomfortable and playful. Rather than resolving awkwardness, the installation lingers within it. Under the stairs becomes a fertile ground for vulnerability, humour and shifting identity.
Solo performances feature solitary characters who navigate rituals of dress-up and self-presentation, using masks, dolls and puppets to explore performative identity. Each character serves as a guise for the complex negotiations of the self. Costumes belonging to three characters are displayed within the space, occupying a space between prop and sculpture. The work draws on theatrical language and clichés, raising questions surrounding performativity once performance has ceased. Each character reappears in one of three live public performances throughout the exhibition, further unsettling the boundaries between actor and audience, spectacle and intimacy.
As a multimedia performance artist, my work is rooted in the exploration of awkwardness, using live solitary characters to navigate vulnerability, humour and performative identity. I investigate how identity is shaped and reshaped through rituals of dress-up and self-presentation. Inspired by the Theatre of the Absurd and performance studies, I embrace discomfort, silence and the surreal as tools for self-reflection and disruption, deliberately shifting away from dialogue to emphasise gesture.
Using abstract collages as points of origin, I create masks, costumes, puppets, and dolls that draw inspiration from masquerade, historical fashions, play and the carnivalesque. These tactile objects—made from papier-mâché, cardboard and textiles—carry a comforting nostalgia and provide an immediacy that lets me work with spontaneity and humour. There’s an inherent playfulness in the act of dressing up, and I lean into this to explore the beautiful strangeness of trying to be seen.
You can visit my website, emilyhought.com, for more information on past and future projects.
I also welcome conversations about my work—please feel free to get in touch using the contact details provided on this page, or pick up a business card from my exhibition space.
Tawdry Foppish Lout, March 2025, Masking
Performance group show curated by Dr Miffy Ryan, Two Queens Gallery, Leicester
