Luca Bosani

Queering the Mind, Releasing the Body 01

Queering the Mind,

Releasing the Body 01

Collaborative project – collective live performance by Conn Williams, FLORA L., Luca Bosani, Luca Manning followed by a Q&A on Queerness and Mental Health.

 

Queering the Mind, Releasing the Body 01 brings to Wandsworth Council four talented London-based queer creators to present a collaborative live immersive journey.

The coral work is centred around queerness and mental health and each creator’s expertise informs it: Conn Williams (he/they Movement and Choreography), FLORA L. (they/she Fashion), Luca Bosani (he/they Performance and Wearable Art), Luca Manning (she/they Music).

The participants are immersed in an inclusive, multi-sensorial environment, and after the performance, they are invited to take part in a Q&A about the key subjects and inspirations for the project.

2024, Performance (45 minutes), Hypha Studios, London, UK

Funded by Wandsworth Council London as part of Grow and Flourish. Supported by the Hypha Studios Award. Photography & Videography: Inês Brochado

Live Performance

Video Documentation (3:35 min)

Q&A: Queerness and Mental Health

left to right:

Luca Bosani is a multimedia artist working with sculpture and performance. In 2017 – during their Performance MA at the Royal College of Art – disappointed and constrained by existing gender and artistic categorisation Luca created the concept of UPOs (Unidentified Performing Objects), artworks that reject categorisation and sit in between definitions; ever-changing, fluid and queer they aim to transform both the wearer and the viewer. In this non-coded, non-binary and non-prescriptive space, their creativity grows and flourishes. Collaboration and coral group performances are at the core of Luca’s practice, and their UPOs are practical and conceptual tools for gender non-conforming individuals, neurodivergent communities and young people to feel seen, heard, included and supported.

FLORA L. is a stylist working across costume-based as well as editorial projects. Exploring styling beyond the gender binary, they touch on self-expression’s essential role in queer coding and identity. Flo carries this fluid discipline into fashion imagery collaborating with dancers and choreographers to develop narratives within the world of post-gender fashion. Formerly working within costume for Netflix’s latest season of Top Boy, they draw on the character-building and sociological practices of costume to create stories. Recent collaborations include Jamie Cousins, Camilla Greenwell and Raluca Margescua with publications for SICKY and Vanity. Flora currently assists Tom O’Dell prioritising Vintage and second-hand pieces to style Ray Winstone, Martin Freeman, and Sam Claflin. Within this world, Flora takes on the traditions of menswear and distributes them to all genders in their practice.

Conn Williams is a movement specialist, choreographer and teacher. He has appeared in West End, opera, music videos, site-specific works, dance for film and art installations. In the past, they have collaborated with TRAH & CHIPS Theatre Ensemble and BYMT as a choreographer and movement director. In Conn’s teaching practice, there is a focus on giving others the knowledge and space to gain greater awareness of their physicality and how to express themselves through the body and movement. Conn is interested in creating multidisciplinary work that immerses audiences in the experience so that they become somewhat collaborators.

Luca Manning is a contemporary music artist and sound design/composer embracing the unknown. They use sound, performance, experimentation and improvisation as a means of discovery, connection, provocation and self-creation. Luca has performed in a diverse range of settings from London’s iconic Roundhouse, where she was a resident artist throughout 2022/23, to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Brighton’s Great Escape Festival, Islay Jazz Festival, Fierce Festival, Southbank Centre and Wilderness Fest, to opening for artists such as Jools Holland, Holysseus Fly and Tom Rasmussen. Born and raised in Glasgow, Luca moved to London in 2018 to study Jazz at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Luca has recently worked on the AudioVisual adventure ‘Welcome To Asteria’ which featured collaborations with filmmaker Marco Alessi and Fashion Artifact and Millinery Designer Leo Carlton. As an independent artist, Luca’s releases have been featured on BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio 2, and BBC Radio Scotland. Luca is a shortlisted artist for The Arts Foundation Futures Award 2024 and was a participant in the Serious Take 5 programme 2023.

Luca’s work currently explores the merging of human and more than human sound; using their voice alongside a range of experimental electronic software and compositional techniques such as granular synthesis and field recording. They focus on improvisation as a root process; intuitive; searching; their sonic fingerprint laced in murmurations of chaos and gentleness and everything in between. Luca is an artist who is continually asking more questions than providing answers – how do we stay with the trouble?

2024, Q&A: Queerness and Mental Health (45 minutes), Hypha Studios, London, UK

Funded by Wandsworth Council London. Supported by the Hypha Studios Award.

by: Conn Williams, FLORA L., Luca Bosani, Luca Manning.

with fashion pieces by: Jack Janvrin, OFFSHOOT, Drew Kent, Beïna Bennacer, Alec Rhys Bizby, Dan Reyes, The House of Syth.

Photography & Videography: Inês Brochado.