ABSTRACT
Within this chapter I will argue that three different performances by artists Selina Thompson, Bryony Kimmings and Annie Siddons represent radical acts of ‘self-care’ whilst eschewing populist neoliberal formulations. I will interrogate Thompson’s salt. (2017), Kimmings’ I’m a Phoenix, Bitch (2018) and Siddons’ How (Not) to Live in Suburbia (2017) from the perspective of artists using performance as part of a process of reconciliation after having experienced trauma and/or mental distress. These artists return to and excavate trauma in order to interrogate its effect on their notion of ‘self’. The process of excavation helps each artist reconcile and come to terms with the transformational nature of the experience. They do not necessarily frame the performances as cathartic, indeed there is little sense of wanting to purge the memory of trauma; instead they invite the audience to ‘sit with’ their experience in order to contemplate how it might affect them in turn. I will argue that these performances resist co-option into the neoliberal populist model of self-care and instead explore the types of alternative power structures proposed by Audre Lorde.
