Park Nights 2021: Rhea Dillon

For Park Nights 2021, Serpentine is pleased to present an evening of performance with artist, writer and poet Rhea Dillon.

For Park Nights 2021, Rhea Dillon presents Catgut – The Opera. Dillon’s libretto ruminates on the conditions and capaciousness of Black performance as experienced through the Black operatic. Taking its departure from The Masque of Blackness by Ben Jonson, a masque commissioned in the early 17th century by Queen Anne of Denmark, the queen consort of King James I, Catgut convenes three orators in classic soapboxing fashion. Throughout the opera’s three acts — the essay, the poem, and the poethic — Dillon denounces the idea that the Black performing artist should or could ever exist in the mundane. The performance is accompanied by sound direction by James William Blades and includes an original composition by TWEAKS. Costumes designed by Jawara Alleyne.

Rhea Dillon is an artist, writer and poet based in London. Through her practice she examines and abstracts her intrigue of the ‘rules of representation’ as a device to undermine contemporary Western culture, seeking to continually question what constitutes the ontology of Blackness versus the ontic. Recent exhibitions include Peak Gallery, London; Almine Rech, London; Drawing A Blank, Paris; External Pages, Online net artwork; Division of Labour, UK and Soft Opening, London.