Fairytale Flaneuse

​Fairy tale flaneuse was a response to the new bollards and chicanes that were errected on Princess Bridge around the end of 2017 after the London bridge terrorist attack of June the 3rd in 2017. The goat character’s costume echoes the colours of the chicanes and attempts to  creates a counter narrative to the fear based one that these new ways of protecting the city evoke. This globalised culture of fear plays into the neoliberal ideology.

 

Here, I am making a performative claim to the space of the Prince's Bridge with the intention to resist and protest a neoliberal representation of the space and hopefully shift the public imaginary around this space...if only for a moment. 

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The Fairytale Flaneuse was said to have stepped from the very walls of the 'Fairytales Transformed' exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. She is a character that plays with the traditional Norwegian fairytale, 'Three Billy Goats Gruff'. I liked the notion of the Fairytale Flaneuse catching the troll that lived under the bridge. 

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The intervention occurred over a period of five days, with each day revealing more of the story.  I would spend about an hour as the Flaneuse in the city then post some of the documenting footage on my Instagram site. For example in the first day I was stepping out of the Potter Museum of Art and by the second day I was "trap, trap trapping over the bridge". Below, I have put together a short one and a half minute video of some of the moments that were posted on my site in both my 'story' and my 'feed',  but they are normally only twenty seconds long at the most. In my mind,  it's about the amount of time you would spend walking past or glancing at the Flaneuse. 
 

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