CLOAKROOM NOW OPEN. A  SAD ANIMAL SHOW  (June, 2026). 
Katie King, curated by Indy Calland. 
Feating performances by Katie King, Trixie Thurner, Sandra Mandich, Indy Calland.
Part of group show Rose Lipman Was Here, Curated by Anne McCloy, Hackney Art Week 2026. 

Site-responsive installation and audience participatory performance. Featuring textile sculpture and animated moving image artworks. 

The performance operates between four roles; Supervisor, Mayoress, Photographer and Printer. The performers constantly rotate between roles to enact a true experience of a bureaucratic civic experience. The audience is invited to register for the cloakroom, and when called, cut the ceremonial ribbon to officially open the cloakroom with an audience, photograph and invitation to make a speech. The photos are then immediately printed and added to the wall creating a growing artwork during the performance. In the spirit of a real cloakroom, the ribbons are continually added and stitched back together, so that the cloakroom never finally opens. 

Around the room printed images collected as part of the research featured on the wall, including simplistic language frequently found in bureaucratic spaces. ACCEPT CHANGE. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION PLEASE. The work centred around chaos as a mechanism. The real wider context of the group show was shrouded in chaos, mismanagement, a lack of cohesion which only brought more joy to the references we were working with. Rotating between roles during the show meant that no system stayed perfect and each performer brought their own flavour to supervision, mayoring, printing, photographing. 

The artwork in the room featured; an upturned desk with looping animated moving image film playing within one of the plug holes of the desk, a butterfly cut out from rabbit fur stretched between wire with a fan behind activating the fur in the breeze like a caught looping butterfly, an animal trap cam recording the audience and performers within the room, hanging quilted textile artworks, a human size textile chain with over sized scissors. 

Performance photos, by Cloakroom Now Open performers. 
Installation and event photos, William Williamson. 
A film outcome along with wider container for the media will be presented soon. 

Many thanks to Mill Co, Hackney Art Week and Hackney Archives. 
Exhibition text (below) produced by Indy Calland.