Ugly Duck Presents @DISTURBANCE This June

Ugly Duck Bermondsey has announced the first ever summer edition of @Disturbance, taking place on Saturday June 22 & Sunday June 23.

Following the success of previous programmes championing LGBTQIA+ performance, video and digital artists, @Disturbance makes maximum use of Ugly Duck's Tanner Street location, a former Victorian factory with multiple spaces. A surreal outdoor party will lead to an interactive indoor set, full of wonder and the unexpected.

June's live performances will be accompanied by a simultaneous online stream, enabling audiences unable to travel to experience @Disturbance in full effect. @Disturbance remains committed to promoting accessibility and fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for radical, diverse and queer artists.

This year, @Disturbance features five artists: Alex Billingham, Samiir Saunders, Ace Rahman, Kobi Essah Ayensuo and Ella Frost, performing live and on giant video screens. @Distrubance is entirely artist-led and is curated by Deen Atger. Other contributions come courtesy of Lucy Nurnberg who will design the exterior installation, Mahalia Henry-Richards taking care of graphic design, set designer Knives, who has a film background and poet Oduenyi Nwike lending their multifaceted skills to @Disturbance as a key part of the team.

Ugly Duck Creative Director and founder of @Disturbance Deen Atger says: “This year we look forward to seeing our regular, fabulous @Disturbance crowd as well as new audiences discovering our work. We're partnering with disabled-led organisations Care-fuffle and Shape Arts to embark on a journey around accessibility. All artists will create new work where captioning, audio description and BSL translation will not only be embedded but considered as the work is being created. By employing livestream, projections and other technologies, we aim to explore and learn what accessibility can mean and look like for artists and audiences. Through this edition of @Disturbance we question how to make this an integral part of the show, rather than approaching it as an afterthought, so that we can not only come together but show up for each other as a larger community.”

@Disturbance 2024 promises to be an unforgettable journey into the realms of creativity, identity, and collective expression.

More about @Disturbance artists:

Samiir Saunders from Birmingham brings their dynamic fusion of spoken word, alternative hip hop and performance art to @Disturbance. Saunders's multimedia poetry embodies a powerful narrative aiming to arm individuals and communities with the tools to be curious, compassionate, and vulnerable in their everyday lives, often exploring themes such as grind culture, isolation, shame, miscommunication, intimacy, and the internet. Samiir's work has travelled both nationally and internationally featuring at Birmingham's Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, London's Jerwood Space and Coventry's New Art Exchange amongst other arts spaces plus Channel 4 Random Acts, BBC Words First, Wales International Film Festival and more.

Kobi Essah Ayensuo is a London-based musician, poet, and creative polymath. Their output is imbued with themes of queer and trans Black identity, coming of age, Ghanaian heritage, navigating relationships and reimagining and decolonising the lens with which Black history is told. Their soulful work often blends vocals, harmonic soundscapes, music and poetry. Kobi has been published by Ink Sweat and Tears, South London Gallery, Flipped Eye and Marques Almeida (for London Fashion Week 2020). They've performed at key venues and festivals such as Wilderness Festival, Mighty Hoopla, Tate Britain, Roundhouse, Barbican and Southbank Centre. They're also a BBC Words First finalist, a member of Soho Writers Lab and an alumnus of the Obsidian Foundation, Barbican Young Poets and the Roundhouse Resident Artist programme.

Alex Billingham's practice is rooted in her personal journey as a disabled, trans, neurodiverse, and queer individual. Alex's work serves as a poignant reflection of how these identities intersect and intertwine with the broader societal landscape. Alex's live performance will take place within an immersive environment using film, installation and 3D. Alex has shown work at Baltic Gateshead, New Art Gallery Walsall, Manchester's Contact Theatre and extensively across the UK and internationally.

Ella Frost is a visual artist working with video as part of their practice. Ella uses analogue technologies, queer narratives, and Black feminism as key elements. For @Distrubance, Ella's work will be shown via giant video screens. They have previously collaborated with key London nightlife organisations and shown their film ‘We Can't Do This Alone' at the Serpentine Gallery in 2022. Recently they were part of group show Membranes with Hypha Studio and directed the trailer for Out, a highly regarded performance piece by artist Ray Young.

Ace Rahman is a British-Bangladeshi multidisciplinary artist and creator. Their ideas are expressed through a variety of mediums both digital and traditional and for @Disturbance Ace will build an immersive installation fusing organic materials, mask-making, fruit and sound, taking place in this alternate universe of their own. They've studied graphic communication design, augmented by a recent exploration into computing at the Creative Computing Institute. Rahman's diverse skillset is reflected in their innovative approach to mediums ranging from traditional graphic arts to interactive digital installations.

About Ugly Duck

Last year, Ugly Duck celebrated a decade of revitalising underused buildings and supporting marginalised artists. Established in October 2012, the organisation has transformed a spacious, empty Victorian warehouse in SE1 into a thriving, creative hub. Over 1500 artists and arts collectives have collaborated with Ugly Duck over the past 10 years.

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