Multiple Os

Performance artist Selina Thompson’s work exemplifies how working on oneself can be harnessed to change the world. Thompson began making autobiographical solo performances about stereotypically feminine concerns before moving on to political topics with a capital ‘P’, e.g., racism and democracy, topics that “men write books about”, as she puts it. The first solo performance work of her still flour...

Veteran performance artist and Artistic Director of SPILL Festival, Robin Deacon makes self-disclosing work that deflects easy assumptions about who he is and what makes him tick. This discussion nevertheless locates two consistencies within his life/work: he has a penchant for avoiding rehearsal and a tendency to exemplify his perspective by talking about musicians and music rather than visual ar...

This episode features an interview from Oriana's archive - a 2016 discussion with feminist art foremother Martha Wilson whose audacious work explores appearance and subjectivity through self-representation, both live and to camera. Wilson's important work provocatively teases out the relationship between the personal, the institutional and the political to question gendered double standa...

Oriana interviews artist Charlotte Warne Thomas about the insights gleaned from the research report she was commissioned to write on the precarious and often unpaid nature of artists' labour. Charlotte shares the impact that research has had on her art practice, which explores the relationships between labour, care and value. She delves into the ideologies behind the notions of meritocracy, &...

Oriana speaks with artist Nando Messias about the hypervisibility of their trans-feminine identity, the risks this entails and how it informs their work in the medium of performance. Importantly, Messias's work also allows them to live out their fantasies, including performing Pina Bausch's choreography, wearing the gown and going to the ball.  Nando Messias is a Brazilian-born, London-b...

Oriana Fox interviews artist Chinasa Vivian Ezugha about her recent projects and the role her early work and upbringing in Nigeria have played in encouraging her political voice. Fittingly, she is currently developing an ambitious, multidisciplinary project speaking out against the use of food scarcity as a weapon of war; and is culminating her practical and doctoral research on glossolalia. Impor...

Artist Chinasa Vivian Ezugha discusses the performance piece Because of Hair , which was a springboard to her career as a performance artist and an activist. The piece entailed covering her face with a hair mask she had constructed as a sculptural object that, when worn, functioned as a catalyst for interpersonal and affective exchange, prompting myriad and often disturbingly violent reactions. Be...

The tables have turned and our host Oriana Fox is in the hot seat while artist Felicity Allen doles out the questions. The two discuss the medium of the interview; those pesky feelings of shame, rivalry and envy; and the role of humour, seriousness and aesthetics in art. If you're struggling with a mid-career slump or suffering due to the upward comparison that social media breeds, this episo...

Oriana interviews artist Felicity Allen who explains the neologism disoeuvre which she coined to describe her own artistic practice as distinct from a progressive, linear oeuvre associated with so-called 'real artists'. A disoeuvre stretches to encompass what is traditionally excluded from an artist's body of work, i.e. work carried out in institutions and the home, reflecting the a...

In this long-awaited final episode of Multiple O's Season 2, Oriana shares an old recording from one of the first performances of The O Show . It felt like a good way to celebrate the life of the late O Show staff psychologist, Angela Fox, Oriana's mum. It also works to bookend the past year in which our host devoted herself full-time to being an academic. It features Scottee, our nation...

Oriana Fox interviews the artist Ann Hirsch whose video and performance art practice entails participant observation within myriad mediated contexts. For her project entitled Scandalishious , Hirsch became a YouTube camwhore with over two million video views and then made an appearance as a contestant on Frank the Entertainer…In a Basement Affair on Vh1.  Much has changed since that pioneering You...

In this fascinating discussion, artist Erica Scourti teaches Oriana what it's like to treat Twitter as if it's your potential boyfriend. Scourti also discusses the art of impersonal autobiography; the recalcitrance of old formats despite the invention of new media; mental health and technology; and the possiblity of resistance in the face of capitalist cooptation. This interview was reco...

In this brand new interview with the artist and author Dawn Woolley, we discuss her brand new book Consuming the body: Capitalism, Social Media and Commodification published by Bloomsbury on 6 Oct 2022. The book is a sociological study of contemporary consumerism and the commodified construction of ideal gendered bodies, paying particular attention to the new forms of interaction produced by socia...

My guest Season Butler is an artist/author. That's right folks, yet another artist turned author! Butler and I discuss the motivations behind her debut novel Cygnet and her performance piece Happiness Forgets , touching upon the racial empathy bias, climate change, activism and Bill Cosby.  This interview was recorded live on Instagram in May 2021 as part of Oriana's digital residency at...

This episode contains a freshly recorded conversation with Ania Bas, a hard-working Polish Artist-turned-Author (based in the UK). Her debut novel Odd Hours revolves around a prickly female protagonist who works in a well-lit, unethical supermarket and lives in a badly-lit zone 3 flatshare. The book contains unidealised migrants, a self-help book-within-a-book, short and sharp poetry and some sauc...

This is a quick announcement that the next episode of "Multiple Os" will be an interview with the artist-turned author, Ania Bas , whose debut novel Odd Hours was published earlier this summer. The previously announced interview with guest Dawn Woolley , author of the academic book Consuming the Body will drop in October. Credits: Produced, edited and hosted by Oriana Fox Introductory Vo...

Oriana Fox interviews artist Karen Karen McLean about her recent body of work and its poignant and unexpected resonances with current events. They discuss McLean's unique approach to materials as metaphors for the topics she addresses including displacement, migration, resistance and resilience. Also discussed are the emotions involved in making work utilising materials symbolic of and honour...

Oriana Fox interviews The Artist Advisory’s founder Marina Press Granger. Granger dispels the myth of the starving artist and a slew of other myths that Oriana throws her way. She also explains her four steps for success: 1. Intention 2. Mindset 3. Presentation 4. Action. So tune in to find out how to make money from your art while staying true to your values. Know your worth! This interview was r...

Oriana Fox interviews the internationally acclaimed artist Gavin Turk for The O Show live edition @mimosahouselondon . The two catch up as it’s been many years since Turk was a guest on The O Show “ Business or Pleasure ” episode. They discuss success, shame, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This interview was recorded live on Instagram in May 2021 as part of Oriana's digital residen...

Oriana Fox reconnects with multi-tasking painter/performer John Kilduff of Let’s Paint TV . Kilduff is the man who Oriana made her first-ever live web broadcast with, the man without whom The O Show would not exist. They discuss the rapid pace of change on internet platforms, imposter syndrome, gender identity, and the future of painting, among many other random topics. This interview was recorded...

🏳️‍🌈 In honour of pride month, I'm sharing the interview I did with Jacqui Bardelang, the performer behind drag king Sigi Moonlight. Bardelang speaks about the various personas Moonlight encompasses and the way they subvert binary gender norms and racial stereotypes through seduction. Counterintuitively, Bardelang has gotten more in touch with her feminine side through drag kinging. We also...

Oriana Fox interviews the straight, white, male painter Glen Pudvine about the artistic process, gender, authenticity, mortality and, of course, dick pics. This interview was recorded live on Instagram in May 2021 as part of Oriana's digital residency at Mimosa House Gallery. You can watch the original video here .  Oriana Fox is a London-based, New York-born artist with a PhD in self-disclos...

Oriana Fox meets The Golden Brown Girls, Indrani Ashe and Shannon Tamara Lewis to discuss the imagined futures that their eponymously titled web series presents. Grey-haired, witty and optimistic, their older selves live out a fantasy that is in distinct contrast to their lived reality in an age of austerity. Ashe and Lewis also discuss the show’s centring of women of colour protagonists. Finally,...

Oriana Fox interviews the queer, working class, disabled artist and writer Jet Moon. They discuss Moon’s varied practice including live performance, anti-austerity activism, sex work and facilitating writing workshops for survivors. This interview was recorded live on Instagram in May 2021 as part of Oriana's digital residency at Mimosa House Gallery. You can watch the original video here . O...

Oriana Fox speaks with live artist Daniel Oliver about the daring mix of pre-planning, chance, nakedness and collaboration in his work. Oliver wants audiences to be euphoric about or made uncomfortable by his participatory work, anything but indifferent. In embracing the label dyspraxic along with punk aesthetics, he welcomes the potential for getting things wrong. In fact, he believes that's...