Sunday 17 October
Toynbee Studios
Tickets
Chav and Coon 'Remain Moist' from michael anthony barnes-wynters on Vimeo.
Michael Mayhew & Michael Barnes-Wynters
are
Black Chav & White Coon
Together they Present
Remain Moist
Described as ’A right pair of very naughty Minstrels’
Both men were divided at birth / more to do with the colour of their skin / the divide in the social & cultural hierarchies /
but not their class.
Both men were brought up watching the light entertainment show, Black & White Minstrels, white men, (apart from Lenny Henry) dancing / singing / jigging and painted as derogatory & racist images of black men.
We became our own minstrels by blending our physical features and challenging the racial bull shit put on chavs and coons, alike.
You see; Mayhew was born a Chav, raised on a fairground – ‘Pleasure Gardens’, the townies would arrive to get pleasured by the Chavs, who were kept at a social distance. Meanwhile, Barnes-Wynters being of Jamaican decent has often been called ‘Coon’ for years, along with other well known derogatory terms, that are on the increase in their use on the streets of divided England.
Both characters have been made invisible, criminalised and employed as your scapegoats, your bogeymen.
We decided to fuck off the social racial & class divides, break up camps, cliques, poke fun at the liberal conservatives, along with the barmy army right wingers / both manic in own extremisms.
We combine and exchange our identities to become,
Black Chav & White Coon.
In the blending of oil and water we begin to have visions of humanity / see beneath the skin / the political hyperbole / the excrement of poison that we have been bathed in /
We request you remain moist for the duration of our offering at the Steak House Longer, Wetter, Faster, Better Festival – as we employ a sequence of actions that matter / > a kind of dance / a strange musical composition & score.
the middle of the room / we will not shake hands / we will paint each other’s faces / we will present Trio z / we will drink tea / we will demarcate / grid the floor employing red gaffer / we will each drop a stone over an imaginary wall / repeatedly / a bell will ring / we will play vinyl records / herd audience / dare not touch for fear of stabbing, shooting, incinerating, tarring, feathering, exploding, shouting – so we gently dance in a ritualised form.
Project website:
https://madeinart.weebly.com/black-chav–white-coon.html