‘The smell wasn’t healthy’: The artist who wore 24 diapers to highlight sewage pollution – and got sick | Art and design

HeyOn Deptford’s foreshore, a terrifying figure is drowning in the River Thames. Performer Zach Mennell (whose name is in lowercase) turns to his belly button as the audience watches. As they descend further down, their mutant costumes — sewn together from 24 adult diapers — swell with water… and waste.

Menil’s work smears the personal and political all over their bodies. The Times presentation is the conclusion of a project called PARA, which was undertaken in response to revelations about sewage being discharged into our waterways and a reaction to the way benefit claimants are described as a drain on society. ‘Well,’ thought Menil, ‘I’ll be the parasite.’ Their approach to pollution was more literal than they intended; They contracted Weil’s disease from rat urine in the water.

Mennell admits that such messy, polluted work is “a little weird, a little intense, a little silly.” Growing up near the chalk pits in Thurrock, Essex, they made their way into London’s live art scene in search of a ‘hotspot of strange injustice and squalor’, the Thames always attracting them. This is what called Menil in their darkest moments. Where they walked when they became sober; And where they return to their art, including their latest film, Sea Change. “I feel like I’m working with it, and sometimes I’m arguing with it too,” they say about water.

For those uninitiated to live art, Menil’s work can be a challenge to audiences. As artist-in-residence for Rat Park’s queer performance and discussion season, Menil immersed himself in a lube-like thickening agent to explore contamination and shame, collecting audience spit in their hands to contemplate community. But it’s never about annoying their viewers. “It’s confronting, but it’s also about finding a moment of connection,” Mennell admits. Live art is “not just people getting naked because they want to.”

In March, Mennell extended this connection by opening the doors of nearby dilapidated safe houses in Peckham to Common Host, a weekend packed with screenings, screenings and workshops dealing with ancient folklore and environmental decay. Their fascination with the pollution of post-industrial landscapes is inspired by their home city, which hosts Neanderthal remains and Amazon warehouses.

Much of their work stems from this collision of people and place. “Performance art is a meeting point,” Mennell says. “You’re creating a community, even if it’s a temporary community.” Backed by experimental performance producers Future Ritual, Common Host will include works by artists including frequent Menil collaborator Martin O’Brien. “Queer performance is often working with friends or lovers,” Mennell says. “This applies to any art form where you deal with difficult and sensitive subjects.”

Mennell doesn’t like to “define” their work, but the themes they explore—queerness, disability, and survival—deserve being treated with care. When they were at university, they had a mental breakdown. While standing in the murky Thames, Mennell held NHS letters – psychological documents and evaluations – printed on rice paper, allowing the words to dissolve in the water. This ending to the Paragraph site is just one of the displays they created using documents from that time, which spoke “about me and never to me.” In another use of adult diapers (they tried to keep them out of the Thames, but “the smell was not healthy”), they asked the audience to read these documents to them, which in turn dissolved the meaning and focused on individual words and phrases, diminishing their power.

Given their experience in institutions, Mennell is concerned about how their art will be perceived. “There was little concern about my behavior in performance which was satisfactory,” they say. But using these cold official documents as performance material was “the only way I could change my relationship with this growing pile.” Similar burden relief is now offered to others as part of the shared host. This full-day workshop will welcome people to examine their difficult relationship with ‘polluting’ substances and work to change their control over them. “It’s an invitation to look at your relationship with something and redefine it,” Mennell says.

By collecting ideas like pebbles from the beach, Common Host “organized itself,” Mennell says, because it ultimately brought together artistic friends. They say, “I’m doing something solo, but it only exists because of these connections.” “The gay community is realizing that our society’s focus on family is not very strong. For me, coming to London was to be among people who look like me.” This community, they say, “means everything. Being together is how we keep going. It’s a reason to live.”