Folly

2023 - , live performance

Documented by Hannah Foley

Harnessing a character to investigate the paradox where the instinctual need to fabricate a ‘comfort zone’ causes sensations of unease, humiliation and discomfort. Folly is an ongoing project that utilises a childlike persona to examine the contradiction where ‘nesting’, a process of emotional safety, is hard-wired to physical sensations of rejection.

This being has a complex and multilayered personality. They are heavily reliant on the people around them, with a strong desire to interact and play, and to provoke an atmosphere of jolly confusion by behaving strangely. However, without the attention of participants, Folly becomes susceptible to embarrassment and shame; inevitably creating a strong urge to isolate.

By activating this persona in public areas, Folly becomes a tool to investigate vulnerable, states such as shame, by literally experiencing them. These are complex physical and emotional states where one avoids psychological feelings of embarrassment, shame, humiliation and rejection; yet due to this avoidance, one experiences these feelings bodily.

Mimicking an aesthetic of a child wearing adult clothes. Folly’s attire blurs the boundary between skin and fabric, and elongated sleeves and pant legs become extensions of their body. The garments are constructed from offcuts of stained sheets and quilts; objects of comfort that become somehow sinister and sad when worn to the point of fray.

“Folly” was the name of Holly Greaves’s alter-ego when she was a child. The artist does not know if it was something that she created, or if it was that was made for her. If she did something wrong, Holly would argue that “it wasn’t me, it was Folly”.