Reality 17

Reality 17. This is a snippet of fun from my very first NYC home, upstairs at the back of 49 West 11th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. It felt like the smallest studio apartment in Manhattan, this being all I could barely afford—but hey, it was my very own first hard-won space alone in New York City, which was electrically exhilarating. The fact that I really could almost touch its two opposite walls at the same time (and had to use a shared, bathless shower room down the communal hallway) was simply part of the charm.

Shot by my dear friends Mal and Kim, it includes me holding up my ink-on-paper design for the Voguing Egyptian Boys tattoo, just a few days before they danced off that little scrap of paper and onto my left arm forever, where they’re both still happily voguing away.

I recognise the music of the Shamen at the start of the audio, playing on my boombox; and then later on, “You Surround Me” by Erasure. (45”)
(See video here.) 

 

(This video is also on Vimeo and YouTube.)