Welcome to the world of Kafayat Adegoke; a “Yorùba Funkster”. A mug for campaigns channeled through art. Finding commonality globally.
Currently appearing on *BBC One; Russell T Davies ‘Years and Years’ . *Channel 4 ‘Great British Sex’ on *BBC 2 ‘Precious Hair and Beauty’ *Channel 4 ‘Steph’s Packed Lunch’ . *’Manchester United FC Advert for Premier league tagged #Projectrestart’. Weekly radio show; Roundtable on 106.6FM. Worked with 12 Years a slave Director Steve McQueen on Hands Art project. Collaborated with 2-time Grammy award winner Lekan Babalola to curate a jazz percussion/poetry rendition of mythical arts with late American Jazz Legend John Coltrane as study. Roadie to Grammy nominee/World-music Juggernaut Fela Seun Kuti & Egypt80. She sits on the Bradford Producing Hub; Creativity Council, and Arts Council England; North Area Council Dev. scheme.
Bodies are complicated but integral subjects in contemporary art.
The body is a conduit for narratives that traverse the physical and social landscape. We live in times where the political body has never been more precariously placed. My practice gestures to the presence (or absence) of bodies. I engage with bodies through a number of intersections, and ability. Elaboration on topics of care, harm, healing, sex, and embodiment are encouraged.I make site-responsive and intimate time-based work across Live performance, Film, Exhibition and Public artwork. – Both live with the audience as witness, and in isolation with my camera and my #Vulva as witness.
She is the star provocateur of one-woman shows; #PER-SO-NA debuted at The Tetley Art Gallery alongside the Simeon Barclay Bus2Move Exhibition, and picked up for a 2nd commission by Theatre in the Mill, Crucible Theatre Sheffield, Lighthouse Centre for the arts -Poole and South London’s Fringe venue The Bridge House Theatre. #The Monster That Feminism Made Me commissioned by Barrel Organ & Camden People’s Theatre. #Òrishá Adulation demonstration/Shrine installation of the river goddess Osun. She is also the creator of the UK City of Culture -Bradford Council’s Àsiá twenty-twenty Street Exhibition highlighting Mask; the official flag of 2020.She is a character-actor! Think Helena Bonham Carter, Lolly Adefope, Josh O’Connor, Maggie Smith, Jennifer Coolidge, Simon Farnaby, and 50Cent
“My long-term goal is to have my own Talk Show; Providing opinions on everything I’m not entitled to (who wouldn’t want that).”
”I curate work edible for every person who enjoys storytelling and shenanigans, hence my work cannot be confined to the boundaries of themes, race, gender, type and other labels”
Kafayat is a chameleon, with a background in Artist management and the Creative Director of Art empathy, and Curiosities (AEC) whose work is often informed by academic research in mix with humane lived experience. Her performance practice is Combined Arts; as she is boundary-daring on different art forms.
Rituals, Libations, and chants. She sings, dances, curates, and rhymes within pieces.
She is an Empathy enthusiast, and a passionate researcher investigating new ideas on how to aid human flourishing. I believe that when any party ceases to contribute, the circle will be broken, and leakages will be discovered.
‘I am keen to approach my cross-genre work as research, critical, and curatorial analysis to recce pressing discomforts of contemporaneity and concepts like Body memory, Otherness, Consumerism, and Nudity art (as a vulnerability tactic, where you submit the body to the will of the audience, to reclaim the sensual, expose and overcome invisible codes of violence on the feminine body)’.
‘I let audiences laugh at my insecurities and giggle at my inner struggles – all as a tool to aid transformation and ascension.
For many years, I have been living by the Rotary 4 Way Test “Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendship? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”.
To add to the growing buzz of this vibrant and audacious artist, Kafayat has been awarded the…
*Develop Your Creative Practice Grant (DYCP), by Arts Council England
*Project Grant – on behalf of Yorkshire Producing Collective, by Arts Council England
Body Sx & Pleasure aesthetic Performance Maker, Trauma-informed Workshop Facilitator, Exhibition Curator, Pop-Culture Critic, Community-Binder, Empathy Enthusiast, Women’s Mouthpiece, Broadcast Journalist, Radio personality.
With a sunny dispostion, she is fascinated about how her lived experience intersects with societal expectations of her, while blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Kafayat is driven by her Yorùba identity and her truth, including her cheerful obsession with being a female with a #Vulva. And Osun goddess of bounty.
”With no intention of moaning, when I see myself on the big screens, it’s often reduced to a stereotype or a cipher. I am not alone in this, there are many POC, who have no visibility except within the confines of certain preconceived ideas”, which is one of the major reasons I became a performance maker where I can generate work for myself.
I get told I am not Black enough.
Follow Kafayat on Social Media
kafayatadegoke.art 