Forkbeard Fantasy was an experimental performance group who saw themselves as part of a new and blossoming movement in art and creativity with humour at its heart. From their beginning in the 1970s, they were experimenting with emerging technologies and theatrical engineering while focusing on the themes of science, nature and the environment which made them a unique entity at the time.
After fifty years of multi-media performances, films, animations, performance poetry, street theatre, and interactive exhibitions, Forkbeard Fantasy officially closed in 2023, donating their archive to the Theatre Collection which includes their eclectic collection of sound, films, writing, designs and drawings.
The group have also set up an endowment fund for collaborating artists of two or more to spend some time researching, experimenting and developing ideas towards a new performance, whilst taking stimulation from Forkbeard Fantasy’s archive.
China Blue Fish and Naomi Smyth are two locally based interdisciplinary artists who have been collaborating alongside their solo practice for 15 years. Having met in 2008 while working with the Invisible Circus they formed a professional relationship out of their shared love of surreal, comedic characters and a DIY approach and aesthetic, using Naomi’s knowledge as creative technologist to play with and parody tech.
They will use the opportunity of this award to research and develop a performance and travelling set of physical and digital builds that use low budget sets together with video and virtual reality content to create a dark, nonsensical parody of the seamless virtual digital utopia offered by tech corporations.
Using Forkbeard Fantasy’s archive as inspiration, they want to drag these illusions of digital perfection down into a highly physical and chaotic mire of interpersonal conflict, mess and labour. Set in a domestic environment, and tunnelling through virtual worlds, their characters will struggle with the shiny distractions of technology, creating thorny problems for the people and organisms who must remain in a shared physical reality.
Naomi said: “We're looking forward to digging into the amazing Forkbeard Fantasy archive together and getting inspired. I'm so excited about the sketches and props and all the physicality we can feed into creating our characters. We already work in a very anarchic, improvised, larger than life way. It's not always easy to incorporate tech into that kind of work. So, it's a huge honour to be recognised as being part of that same tradition and legacy with Forkbeard and supported to develop new work within that.”
China added: “To have received this award is a fantastic acknowledgement of the work Naomi and I have done as artists to date. We are so excited to be working with the iconic and legendary Forkbeard Fantasy whose work we admire, and which chimes with our practice on many levels. I am thrilled to have space and time to delve into their surrealist imaginings documented at the archive, and to be able to be supported by them along the way is a real privilege! Thank you - I'm not sure there are many other spaces where I can safely say I am ‘a silly person’ in an interview and be successful! The world needs more wonder, and it is so exciting to be able to create it.”
Tim Britton, co-founder of Forkbeard Fantasy, said: “We're delighted that the University of Bristol Theatre Collection are hosting our 50 years of archives, films, sounds and visual records Also, in a symbolically full circle since our own early struggles in the 1970s, that we've been able to set up this annual Forkbeard Fantasy Award to celebrate continued pioneering creativity and performance. It's tremendous being able to support Naomi and China to continue on their richly deserved creative journey together.”
Chris Britton, co-founder of Forkbeard Fantasy, added: “From such a huge assortment of amazing applications China and Naomi’s fun, adaptable, irreverent and relevant, Forkbeardian derring-do approach to developing a new piece of work is a deserving winner. We can’t wait to see the ‘weird and impossible places’ they end up in.”
Penny Saunders, Forkbeard Fantasy’s set and costume designer since 1980, said: "We had a fascinating range of applications; a choice was hard to make. Naomi and China’s ambition for their collaboration was so joyful it made me feel optimistic about artistic and creative purpose, particularly when handling ‘The Artist's Battle with Artificial Intelligence' - they may have the right ideas."
Julian Warren, Head of Theatre Collection: said: “It has been such a delight to work alongside Tim, Chris and Penny from Forkbeard Fantasy to set up this very generous artists award. We hope that China and Naomi will have fun being able to spend some time with Forkbeard’s archive, and we are looking forward to watching their ideas develop and come to life over the coming year.”