Mind-maps 08.10.25. 09.10.25. 11.10.25

By the time I stand on the stage I fucking remember it was my real ethos. I did excavate the Reno with nobody but us. No fucking arts institutions. For us. Art’s Council money. Salford University real archaeologists. Big up to archaeological lead Sarah Cattell who turned a blind eye to the weed smoking, in favour of us having a real experience, our experience.  

2017. The Whitworth 2nd in command, acting chief, Mistress Sam Lackey, a museum Karen, hears someone talk about the Reno excavation in the post office. She invites us in for a one-night stand. 23.11.17.

Then megalomania, and narcissism take me over. I get into bed with the Whitworth for a year. My self-esteem gets shredded. Seems I never fucking learn. I can’t overwhelm how they make me feel. Takes six months to get a staff key in case me and the Reno 12, who are also in residence with me, fleece the joint. Museum Karen making us constantly aware of our place. Eventually, I have no choice but to unsheathe my rapier.  And shred her to bits. She haunts the gallery bleeding. Looking like the Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead appear in the12.09.25 mind-map of my 8 declarations. In the form of a sanctuary, the church in the Walking Dead, where the Rick-led-gang first meet Gabriel, the priest who is hiding that he locked his congregation out to save his own life from the hoard.

Who is the hoard? Whom do our modern white saviours imagine are the 1970s hoard who threaten to devour us? Who do we need sanctuary from? Why do we need to congregate in one place to be saved? Who are these dangerous people? Cos as sure as hell they won’t be seeing themselves as the wicked ones who are gonna eat us alive. Who do we need a sanctuary or a haven from? In need. Always in need. Always unable to just be human.

So, I do the excavation for us. Then I get in bed with the Whitworth. And Factory International see me in bed with the Whitworth and want the crowd they imagine I tow behind me, so they invite me in because they are interested in the Reno’s significance to Manchester; and I write back I dug up the Reno because of its significance to me.  

It is a badge of honour to be half-caste in the Reno. We are our theatre and our audience. We nod like Goodfellas. We laugh like brother and sister. We are cutting our teeth like cubs climbing on the back of other cubs working out who we are; who has done a no-no; who has done a faux pas. May as well kill yourself. At least don’t come back for another month. And in that month reinvent yourself. Not too much that anyone will notice. We all fucking notice. We all take the piss. You’re not really in if we don’t take the piss. The music is banging. (Translation, fucking fantastic.) But I don’t want to tell you lot cos basically. Basically what?

This is real life. And there is your life. Where you ponce off the system to pay your mortgage. And you pretend to yourselves, amongst yourself, that your stuff is real, and it matters, and it is art, and it is an education. Like the priest in an Egyptian temple who is wafting neroli and calling the gods to have a good harvest. And his compensation is he has the best house and huge clout. Or the priest who is brewing mead and tending bees, doing no hard labour. Well, he might be digging a field. Cloistered. The begging bowl. Buddha’s begging bowl. Who are we all kidding?

I’m back to money. So, I may not know how to earn a buck because I have been brainwashed by the 1970s counterculture. Or I may be in post-traumatic shock of witnessing the 1974 remains of Jamaican slavery. Or I may be infected with the generational epigenetic trauma of free labour. Or, as I say on Saturday, on Contact stage at 3.55pm, 5 minutes before we end, I need to stay outside the system, so I don’t become institutionalised. I cannot give you the power to sack me. So I am constantly afraid to speak my mind. You need me. But you need to listen to me. And you need to compensate me accordingly.

1974. My Aunt Adelyn and her sister my Aunt Chiquita dress up like they are in Jane Campion’s The Piano and ask Mr Country to give us, them, a lift when he goes on his weekly trading jaunt to Montego Bay. He drops us off. We walk up a hillside. Into a house that is almost a cave. There are jars. There are bottles. There is dust. She is called Aunt Ada. Her skirt is hitched by her inflated belly. Her beads never come off. She is kind. She is mad. Her legs are slightly bandy. She is a cartoon character. They tell her what a hot dem — (translation, pains them). She listens. Holistically. Asks questions. A psychology session Jamaican style. Makes a concoction for Chiquita’s arthritic knees. And a sleeping remedy for Miss Adelyn. She is glad to meet me. I never think to ask, 'Am I really related to you?' In return they give her fruit and vegetables grown in Adelyn’s kitchen garden. Miss Ada’s time is more valuably spent listening. Convening with the ailments. Hunting down ingredients. Experimenting to find remedies. Offering them relief.