I HEARD THE SINGING OF YOUR WINGS
I heard the singing of your wings - Installation and Performance
Prologue :
“...works of art help a survivor find strength …. to understand their experience. ...to expose and explore the embodied truths of surviving sexual violence. Making art enacts ‘the right to be heard’ and ‘tells your story in a way that feels right.’
Monologue: In my early life I did not really think about who I was. To fit in, I assumed the role family and society projected.
For a while I tried to be manly and be a good Catholic. Avoid mortal sin and the fires of hell. Meet a woman. Marry. We would have a family. Doubts started creeping in…
It was the games children play...
Ten years old and hating sport, refusing to play cricket or football, The thought of a rock hard cricket ball travelling at speed toward me was terrifying; as was the thought of getting into the rough house fighting called football.
I was not really a part of any of the groups that formed around a chosen sport.
In my loneliness I spent a lot of time trying to keep out of sight, trying to stay hidden. Another school kid, Bobbie, frequently chased me down. Tackling me and holding me to the ground, “wrestling”, while rubbing his groin against me. Then he would run off, leaving me lying in the dirt.
I’m about 12 years old, sitting on the beach with Alan and his cousin Jeffery, we are just down the hill in front of Alan’s home, hidden behind a stand of Sheoaks. Alan has his penis out and wants me to put my mouth around it. I am very reluctant and keep refusing. Jeffery maintains that it is easy and that he has done it; says not to worry about Alan peeing, all I have to do is suck and he will not be able to pee.
I can see my young self starting to waver, after all, Alan is the great admired football player and all round school sports hero.
If I dont, Jeffery will tell everyone I am weak, a coward. If I do, Jeffery will tell everyone. How do you make a decision in a no win situation...
Then suddenly, in the background, Alan’s older sister, “What are you boys up to ? Come on. It’s time for lunch.”
I can really relate to Robert Dessaix when he writes:
A man should have a mate or two to call on in an emergency (football final, roof blown off, sudden death)… Shouldn’t he ??
I never had any mates... I didn’t have any mates in this sense at all...
Its the little things that hurt, the discrimination, the sporadic violence. Things that you learn are never far away; then they happen and catch you by surprise. Over the years I have come to terms with who I am and non-acceptance.
It is only now in my eightieth year that I am trying to throw some light into the shadows - the things that were grey.
Performance : Movement / dance / do voice when not facing audience
Voice: I hear group laughter and chat drifting up from the beach. A person arrives. A call, “Hey Lee, where’s Max,?” Lee’s “Dont worry, let’s go, We’re not waiting for that fairy “.
Performance: Movement - like a blow to the head, to the heart, stopped. Silently crying.
Voice : “hit him”, “hit him”. “ Hit the poof”
Performance: movement slowing into
Monologue:
I knew I needed “protection”. His name was Mick.
The “alpha” in our class, I tossed around in his shadow, hidden behind a camouflage of asexuality from his aggressive heterosexuality – “I punch out homos if I find them”. Subservient, mostly ignored but expected to be there so he does not over-sleep an afternoon nap, to be there to look after his gear while he played sport. Rewarded with a measure of protection.
For a while….
Then I am mixing with grown ups…
A night out, at the Pub. JV offers me a lift back to Navy base... Says he wants a “slash”, and pulls over into the bush. There, in that quiet spot,
he walks over and with both hands forces my head down... From then on, if he could track me down...
A few times with two of his mates, once three of them and another young man, Russ, who was also being abused. Saying no did not seem to be an option, given the real possibility of physical violence. A Naval community is small, instant dismissal the consequence. For 18 months, until I reached the end of my term and an honourable discharge, I, at least, had an end in sight.
A year after I had left and settled into National Art School, I heard that Russ had taken his own life.
Monologue :
Standing against the back wall, in a darkened gay nightclub, talking to a man, there is a mutual attraction, we kiss… two plainclothes police arrest and take us outside, the man is put into a police car with uniformed police. The plainclothes officers take me, in an unmarked car, to a building where in a nondescript office I am ordered to strip…
Performance :
Reluctantly remove black jacket / strip to white t-shirt and white pants... Silently perform
- slow movements /standing, falling/ intermittent slap of hand on flesh / splash and spill of red rose petals over face / head / body
Voice (toward end of performance) :
Hush, little baby, don't you cry..... Hush, little baby, don't you cry.... Hush, little baby, don't you cry.
One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing.
You'll spread your wings and take to the sky.
Performance : recovery and stillness – getting stronger / standing up straighter
Monologue:
Mentally I had never been sure where I stood. Especially with all the labels that tried to define and box me in.
Male, Female, Fairy, Pansy, Faggot, Queen, Pillow-biter, Poofter… Gay...
For me, Robert Dessaix summed up, when he wrote
… I felt no need to be manly with anyone. What I needed to be, still need to be, was human, surely, more broadly human, not manly.
I knew that I had to take control, being a victim was not an option.. and I had to “rise up singing”…
The catalyst was meeting Flash. Who escaped everyday life in academia through becoming Flash who did “pop-up” performances.
To Flash, I was not Butch or Fem, not Hetro or Homo… I was a person. His muse.
When I heard his singing wings expand
My face fell deeply in his shoulder.
Sweet moons we flew thus, yet I waned not older
Till, when his wings were drooping to an end,
Feeling my empty hand fulfilled with his,
I knew Love gave himself my passion friend.
Performance : Speaks and starts slow / joy / happy moment / dance
Voice: It took a little while to spread my wings… To think of myself as me. A human being.
Being in performances with Flash gave me control and a way of writing a script for a new life.
To spread my wings. To play the roles I wanted to play, the art to be made….
Performance: Take a piece of art paper brush a splash of glue.
Rip up story pages and light a piece, drop the ash on sheet of art paper with glue
Add a couple of pieces of torn story. Sprinkle on a few rose petals
Voice (while making art work) :
A rainbow appeared
in a sudden squall
and big fat rain drops
started to fall.
Rainbow colour
please wash away
the grey in my life
and the grey of the day.
Blow me away
to rainbow’s end
where on the ground
lay a lustrous shell
rainbow bright
Mother of Pearl.
Iridescence...
Pin up art work on wall.
Go to last I Heard the Singing of your Wings collage pick up card / text and read:
I heard the singing of your wings’ retreat;
Far-flown, I watched you flush the Olympian snows,
Beyond my hoping. Starkly I returned
To stare upon the ash of all I burned.
END
References
Tangled Reality Beth Kearney SRB 2025
“To Eros” Collected poems of Wilfred Owen C Day Lewis New Directions 1963
“To the Bitter Sweet-heart: A Dream” Collected poems of Wilfred Owen C Day Lewis New Directions 1963
Iridescence Chroma 1994 Derek Jarman
Chameleon Robert Dessaix 2025
Prologue :
“...works of art help a survivor find strength …. to understand their experience. ...to expose and explore the embodied truths of surviving sexual violence. Making art enacts ‘the right to be heard’ and ‘tells your story in a way that feels right.’
Monologue: In my early life I did not really think about who I was. To fit in, I assumed the role family and society projected.
For a while I tried to be manly and be a good Catholic. Avoid mortal sin and the fires of hell. Meet a woman. Marry. We would have a family. Doubts started creeping in…
It was the games children play...
Ten years old and hating sport, refusing to play cricket or football, The thought of a rock hard cricket ball travelling at speed toward me was terrifying; as was the thought of getting into the rough house fighting called football.
I was not really a part of any of the groups that formed around a chosen sport.
In my loneliness I spent a lot of time trying to keep out of sight, trying to stay hidden. Another school kid, Bobbie, frequently chased me down. Tackling me and holding me to the ground, “wrestling”, while rubbing his groin against me. Then he would run off, leaving me lying in the dirt.
I’m about 12 years old, sitting on the beach with Alan and his cousin Jeffery, we are just down the hill in front of Alan’s home, hidden behind a stand of Sheoaks. Alan has his penis out and wants me to put my mouth around it. I am very reluctant and keep refusing. Jeffery maintains that it is easy and that he has done it; says not to worry about Alan peeing, all I have to do is suck and he will not be able to pee.
I can see my young self starting to waver, after all, Alan is the great admired football player and all round school sports hero.
If I dont, Jeffery will tell everyone I am weak, a coward. If I do, Jeffery will tell everyone. How do you make a decision in a no win situation...
Then suddenly, in the background, Alan’s older sister, “What are you boys up to ? Come on. It’s time for lunch.”
I can really relate to Robert Dessaix when he writes:
A man should have a mate or two to call on in an emergency (football final, roof blown off, sudden death)… Shouldn’t he ??
I never had any mates... I didn’t have any mates in this sense at all...
Its the little things that hurt, the discrimination, the sporadic violence. Things that you learn are never far away; then they happen and catch you by surprise. Over the years I have come to terms with who I am and non-acceptance.
It is only now in my eightieth year that I am trying to throw some light into the shadows - the things that were grey.
Performance : Movement / dance / do voice when not facing audience
Voice: I hear group laughter and chat drifting up from the beach. A person arrives. A call, “Hey Lee, where’s Max,?” Lee’s “Dont worry, let’s go, We’re not waiting for that fairy “.
Performance: Movement - like a blow to the head, to the heart, stopped. Silently crying.
Voice : “hit him”, “hit him”. “ Hit the poof”
Performance: movement slowing into
Monologue:
I knew I needed “protection”. His name was Mick.
The “alpha” in our class, I tossed around in his shadow, hidden behind a camouflage of asexuality from his aggressive heterosexuality – “I punch out homos if I find them”. Subservient, mostly ignored but expected to be there so he does not over-sleep an afternoon nap, to be there to look after his gear while he played sport. Rewarded with a measure of protection.
For a while….
Then I am mixing with grown ups…
A night out, at the Pub. JV offers me a lift back to Navy base... Says he wants a “slash”, and pulls over into the bush. There, in that quiet spot,
he walks over and with both hands forces my head down... From then on, if he could track me down...
A few times with two of his mates, once three of them and another young man, Russ, who was also being abused. Saying no did not seem to be an option, given the real possibility of physical violence. A Naval community is small, instant dismissal the consequence. For 18 months, until I reached the end of my term and an honourable discharge, I, at least, had an end in sight.
A year after I had left and settled into National Art School, I heard that Russ had taken his own life.
Monologue :
Standing against the back wall, in a darkened gay nightclub, talking to a man, there is a mutual attraction, we kiss… two plainclothes police arrest and take us outside, the man is put into a police car with uniformed police. The plainclothes officers take me, in an unmarked car, to a building where in a nondescript office I am ordered to strip…
Performance :
Reluctantly remove black jacket / strip to white t-shirt and white pants... Silently perform
- slow movements /standing, falling/ intermittent slap of hand on flesh / splash and spill of red rose petals over face / head / body
Voice (toward end of performance) :
Hush, little baby, don't you cry..... Hush, little baby, don't you cry.... Hush, little baby, don't you cry.
One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing.
You'll spread your wings and take to the sky.
Performance : recovery and stillness – getting stronger / standing up straighter
Monologue:
Mentally I had never been sure where I stood. Especially with all the labels that tried to define and box me in.
Male, Female, Fairy, Pansy, Faggot, Queen, Pillow-biter, Poofter… Gay...
For me, Robert Dessaix summed up, when he wrote
… I felt no need to be manly with anyone. What I needed to be, still need to be, was human, surely, more broadly human, not manly.
I knew that I had to take control, being a victim was not an option.. and I had to “rise up singing”…
The catalyst was meeting Flash. Who escaped everyday life in academia through becoming Flash who did “pop-up” performances.
To Flash, I was not Butch or Fem, not Hetro or Homo… I was a person. His muse.
When I heard his singing wings expand
My face fell deeply in his shoulder.
Sweet moons we flew thus, yet I waned not older
Till, when his wings were drooping to an end,
Feeling my empty hand fulfilled with his,
I knew Love gave himself my passion friend.
Performance : Speaks and starts slow / joy / happy moment / dance
Voice: It took a little while to spread my wings… To think of myself as me. A human being.
Being in performances with Flash gave me control and a way of writing a script for a new life.
To spread my wings. To play the roles I wanted to play, the art to be made….
Performance: Take a piece of art paper brush a splash of glue.
Rip up story pages and light a piece, drop the ash on sheet of art paper with glue
Add a couple of pieces of torn story. Sprinkle on a few rose petals
Voice (while making art work) :
A rainbow appeared
in a sudden squall
and big fat rain drops
started to fall.
Rainbow colour
please wash away
the grey in my life
and the grey of the day.
Blow me away
to rainbow’s end
where on the ground
lay a lustrous shell
rainbow bright
Mother of Pearl.
Iridescence...
Pin up art work on wall.
Go to last I Heard the Singing of your Wings collage pick up card / text and read:
I heard the singing of your wings’ retreat;
Far-flown, I watched you flush the Olympian snows,
Beyond my hoping. Starkly I returned
To stare upon the ash of all I burned.
END
References
Tangled Reality Beth Kearney SRB 2025
“To Eros” Collected poems of Wilfred Owen C Day Lewis New Directions 1963
“To the Bitter Sweet-heart: A Dream” Collected poems of Wilfred Owen C Day Lewis New Directions 1963
Iridescence Chroma 1994 Derek Jarman
Chameleon Robert Dessaix 2025