Hellenistic Hunk
Costume Designer
Hellenistic Hunk by Nick Walters Performance Projects
Choreographer, Dancer, Director,Producer, Set Designer & Builder: Nick Walters
Dancer: Natalie Surry
Pattern cutter and seamstress: Anne Fidler
Hellenistic Hunk (2015-16) is a performance installation consisting of a pile of 1886 sculpted faces of the homosexual Roman deity Antinous, rough cut and cast in Welded Wire Fabric Reinforced Portland Cement.
Two performers interact with the installation deconstructing preconceived masculinities and creating manifestations of politicised violence through physical endurance feats and masochistic ritual.
The placement of the casts into a pile resembling that of rubble on a demolition site is a physical representation of the collapse of form and beauty, emphasizing the notion that being in ruin is always a condition of violence, neglect, abuse, abandonment, war or destruction, much as the very death of Antinous himself was potentially an act of sacrificial violence.
This work has been commissioned as part of the LGBT History Month Major Events Program by the London Borough of Waltham Forest Council, premiering at the William Morris Gallery and presented by Salon Outre, London.
Vision for the Costumes were inspired by the intimidation of military costumes, Hellenistic and homoerotic male bodily representations, and the anarchy of cyber punk clothing. Through an extensive design process, the core inspiration of the costumes remain, intimidation through imposing shapes, fabrics( ex: distressed wool, wool suiting, mesh) illustrating oppressive post apocalyptic, militaristic figures.