zack mennell made a costume out of nappies and waded into filthy waterways saying: ‘I’m going to be the parasite.’ The performance artist’s project became more literal than originally intended
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n the Deptford foreshore, a ghoulish figure is sinking into the Thames. Performance artist zack mennell (who writes their name in lower case) wades to their belly button as a crowd watches on. DAs they dip down further, their mutant costume – sewn together from 24 adult nappies – swells with water … and waste.
mennell’s work smears the personal and political across their body. The Thames performance is the finale of a project called (para)site, made in response to revelations of sewage discharge in our waterways and a reaction to the way benefit claimants are labelled a drain on society. “OK,” mennell thought, “I’m going to be the parasite.” Their taking on of pollution was more literal than they intended; they contracted Weil’s disease from rat urine in the water.
Such messy, muck-slathered work is, mennell admits, “a bit weird, a bit intense, a bit silly”. Growing up by the chalk pits of Thurrock, Essex, and making their way into London’s live art scene for its “hotspot of queer iniquity and filth”, they were always drawn by the Thames. It’s what called to mennell in their darkest moments; where they walked when they were getting sober; and where they return for their art, including their latest film, a sea change. “I feel like I’m working with it,” they say of the water, “sometimes arguing with it too.”
