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Red Hair Girl

A is for Aardvark, B is for Bubonic Plague

Wellington 2018

Vanessa Crofskey

A is for Aardvark, B is for Bubonic Plague is an interdisciplinary performance that combines durational writing alongside a large hanging installation of meat, plastic and text. The work explores the history of processing emotional landscapes and cultural relationships to death.
.The artist writes letters to passed celebrities, tries to resuscitate taxidermied ducklings and vacuum seals mementos in plastic bags in an obsessive, intimate performance that wrestles with the violence of controlling the narrative. She lives in a world of red lights and hanging wires, in which plastic forms, tactile material and envelopes grab at your attention. The artist as performer molds into the backdrop. She exists in the dual state of observer and performer, completing the ordinary task or writing and conveying meaning with dutiful attention.

The artist passes the burden of meaning onto the audience, through letters that are free to take home. A private reflection becomes a matter of public engagement.


Vanessa Crofskey is a young multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans the boundaries of text, performance and installation. She is interested in the space of contemporary language as an object of violent imposition, as well as a tool for intentional resistance. Her work uses interdisciplinary methodology to blur the lines between art, text and object.

Vanessa was the recipient of two Auckland Fringe Festival Awards in 2017, including Auckland Theatre Company’s Here and Now Award for emerging practitioners. Vanessa is published in Scum Mag (AU), Dear Journal (CA) and Depot Artspace (NZ). She is the current Auckland Regional Slam Champion. Most recently, Vanessa has worked on films for Auckland Museum, and has performed for ST PAUL St Gallery, RM, the Audio Foundation, play_station, The Basement, ASB Waterfront Theatre and Q Theatre. She is a recent BVA graduate of AUT.


Special thanks to: Monique Redmond, Tosh Ahkit, Alice Canton, Dane Mitchell, friends and family.

With workshop and material support from Auckland University of Technology

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