In TESTO, multifaceted artist Wet Mess ‘messifies’ the messiness of life, immersing audiences in an hour-long performative extravaganza both physically charged and thought provoking. With teeth and one chin hair, they explore transitions, testosterone, the edges of drag plus the blurry line between performance and reality, character and self and the magical in the mundane.
Originally presented as part of the Here & Now Showcase at 2024’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Battersea Arts Centre is excited to host the London debut of this powerful award-winning work, maximising Wet Mess’s skills and their embodiment of authenticity, experience and ownership.
Combining razor sharp movement with pre-recorded interviews, expect surreal spectacles, dykey desires and a choreography of guttural sexuality as Wet Mess pinches at the dull flesh of life
Cutting their teeth on the East London drag circuit, albeit with a live art core, Wet Mess continues to accumulate a following and further their creative trajectory by pushing boundaries and breaking binaries. As well as the Edinburgh success in 2024 where TESTO won The Skinny’s Gender Euphoria Award, Wet Mess performed as part of Sound of the Underground at the Royal Court written by Travis Alabanza and Debbie Hannan, and Galatea by Emma Frankland as part of Brighton Fringe. In November 2021, they won Not Another Drag Competition, one of the most prestigious drag contests held for seven weeks at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and since have been booked extensively at queer venues in the UK and internationally.
They’ve choreographed a music video in recent months for Tove Lo and have worked on movement direction for artists such as Will Young, London Grammar and Wolf Alice. In 2019, Wet Mess produced the dance film Sissy Fatigue funded by Jerwood Arts and screened at Thunderdance, Raindance and London Short Film Festival, winning multiple awards including Best Music Video at the Thunderdance Film Festival, Cannes 2019.
. Their dance video work has been presented on multiple digital platforms including Nowness, Boiler Room’s 4:3 and BBC Scotland.
As a performer they’ve worked internationally with Pester & Rossi, Monster Chetwynd (a former Turner Prize nominee), Donna Huanca, Oriana Fox, Cecile B Evans, Molly Palmer, Beth Kettel, Bhebhe&Davies, Joseph Bond and Rebecca Lloyd-Evans.
Solo and collaborative works have been shown in a variety of contemporary contexts such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Battersea Arts Centre, The Place, Shoreditch Town Hall, Walker Gallery, The Photographers Gallery, Baltic39 and multiple film festivals.
Since 2014 they have collectively created work with the performance group STASIS, and in 2018 they won a Fringe First award at Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the theatre company ThisEgg.
