Emily Hought - Costume Thyself Accordingly

Costume Thyself Accordingly (rites of becoming under the stairs), 2025

Installation and live performances

Loughborough University BA Fine Art Degree Show 2025

Video Projection of the 'Ashen Fool'

Click a button below to explore each performance.

Not That One (a doppel for the fool)

Starring the Ashen Fool

Dawdling in Mime II

Starring the Mimic Lollygagger

Puppet Parfum

Starring the Tawdry Foppish Lout

Text Taken from SDCA Official Webpage:

"Costume Thyself Accordingly (rites of becoming under the stairs), is a live performance and installation work that reimagines a backstage dressing room beneath a staircase. The work merges video projection, photography, collage and transformed domestic objects to create an immersive, theatrical environment revolving around three distinct characters. Ultimately, the work explores the unstable relationship between performer and costume, inviting viewers into a world that is both uncomfortable and playful. Rather than resolving awkwardness, the installation lingers within it. Under the stairs becomes a fertile ground for vulnerability, humour and shifting identity.

Solo performances feature solitary characters who navigate rituals of dress-up and self-presentation, using masks, dolls and puppets to explore performative identity. Each character serves as a guise for the complex negotiations of the self. Costumes belonging to three characters are displayed within the space, occupying a space between prop and sculpture. The work draws on theatrical language and clichés, raising questions surrounding performativity once performance has ceased. Each character reappears in one of three live public performances throughout the exhibition, further unsettling the boundaries between actor and audience, spectacle and intimacy."

All photos courtesy of Nyklaus Thorn