• weareuglyduck
Incredible scenes of the 3hrs durational performan Incredible scenes of the 3hrs durational performance by @martinobrienart captured by Jean Cleverley @jean_cleverley69 at A Collective Archive, curated by @deen_atg , Ugly Duck 2025. Martin O’Brien, Fading Out of Dead Air (Transmissions for the Necropolis) : A scratchy sound of white noise emanates from a small radio, filling the dark room. A faint voice comes through. It sounds like nothing from this world, as if death itself were speaking. Somewhere else, sickly patients lie in hospital beds in hell. They don’t understand why they are still sick. They listen to the hospital radio, but it doesn’t play their favourite songs. Instead, they listen to the sounds of a life once lived. Drawing inspiration from hospital radio and stories of ghosts heard through analogue technologies, this 3-hour performance by Martin O’Brien explores the human desire to communicate and record. In a strange and eerie landscape, O’Brien shuffles around, recording and playing half-heard voices and unholy sounds. Martin O’Brien is an artist and zombie. He works across performance, writing and video art. His work uses long durational actions, short speculative texts and critical rants, and performance processes in order to explore death and dying, what it means to be born with a life-shortening disease, and the philosophical implications of living longer than expected. @futureritual @zackmennell @queerartprojects 💕
🪐🪐 As we close this chapter of Ugly Duck, t 🪐🪐 As we close this chapter of Ugly Duck, this page will now become our archive and portfolio, a space to revisit the many moments, artists, and experiments that made our journey so special 🪐🪐 To keep up with what’s next, please follow: 👉 @disturbanceldn queer-led platform for experimental art, performance & collaboration 👉 @deen_atg , curator, artist & creative producer behind Ugly Duck’s vision 💕 Thank you for being part of our story 💕 Pics by @edasan
More stunning pictures by @edasan of our final eve More stunning pictures by @edasan of our final event A Collective Archive curated by @deen_atg The four days unfolded as an incredible utopia where everyone can exist as their chosen self, seen and welcomed in our full, complex and beautiful existence. In the world ravaged by atrocities the space felt more important and valuable than ever. In the pictures here @sophie_brain_ performing in the changing room immersive installation by @roughfabrics and @feef_la. @jean_cleverley69 is showing their incredible photography work, @boldmelloncollective is performing in @blanca_regina and @pierrebouvierpatron’s installation. @tribe_incorporated in the gallery space in front of @puer_deorum and @hazelnblair’s work. @mother.mandragora is blessing the space, Gushing with Gabby’s radio show (@gacalales and @montezpressradio) is recorded in the changing room and @hera.s.santos in the garage in front of the remains of performances from previous days. @boldmelloncollective organised a giant collage workshop with work to be donated to @bishopsgateinstitute. All of this will stay in our mind forever and in the walls of 47/49 Tanner Street way beyond our stay there. We’re getting to the very last days now, feeling emotional but proud of what’s been our 13 year journey. Thank you to all of you again who witnessed and took part. The love and dedication to create inclusive art spaces won’t stop there ❤️‍🩹
What does it mean to gather, to remember, to hold What does it mean to gather, to remember, to hold space for stories that might otherwise be forgotten? A Collective Archive (12 - 15th June 2025) was born out of a desire to resist erasure. As a curator, artist, and organiser working within queer and intersectional spaces, I’ve often found myself surrounded by urgent, brilliant, and fragile work—ephemeral moments of resistance, creativity, and care that slip too easily through the cracks of dominant cultural memory. This project was a response to that fragility: a space to pause, witness, document, and celebrate. Rather than a static repository, A Collective Archive did unfold as a living, breathing process. It brought together artists, activists, performers, writers, and community members who understand that archiving is not just about the past—it’s about survival, about building futures. This wasn’t not an archive in the traditional sense. It was embodied, messy, collaborative. It welcomed contradiction. It thrived in the interstices between personal and political, digital and physical, celebration and mourning. So many of you came through ! Thank you again so much to everyone involved artists & performers, producers, lighting and sound wizards, volunteers and wonderful audience members Day 1 - Opening portal 1. @biogal WAITLIST 3 hrs duration performance dedicated to all we’ve lost to the list, and those of us still finding ways to love whilst waiting 2. The changing room; Immersive installation conceived and designed by Freddy @roughfabrics and in collaboration with @feef_la 3. Exhibition view with @hazelnblair @georgiasemple @ramenate and @jean_cleverley69 4. @johnleebird - Twin Peaks series 5. @tackyskin & @andreslerena @minekaplangi @queerartprojects  @martinobrienart @hera.s.santos @boldmelloncollective @0duenyi @clayebowler @blanca_regina @aceagrams @deen_o0 @deen_atg +++ Thank you ever so much @edasan for the photos 💕🤝🤌🫶👌 There is so many amazing pics we might just upload them all somewhere for everyone to experience via time traveling imaginative brain power 🪐
What is this final Dance with the Ugly Duck? Deen What is this final Dance with the Ugly Duck? Deen is here to break down the joyful weekend Ugly duck has planned. Tickets in our bio! 📀📀📀📀
A Collective Archive is taking place this Thursday A Collective Archive is taking place this Thursday till Sunday. We hope to see you there🦆❤️