The show was a total blast, very professionally organised, and a lot of fun backstage. Her clothes are so, so beautiful. I’d found them very striking in images I’d seen online but when you see them up close, they’re something else. The subtleties and details are amazing, and everything looks a lot more delicate and feminine than I’d expected.

All hair for the show was done by the incomparable Robert Masciave, who also shot video footage of the show. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen video of a suspension I’ve done and I love it.

I’m struggling to embed the video, but you can view it at the link below -
Rachel Friere at TG Birthday Ball 2010

Rachel also got some excellent coverage of the show over at Tank Magazine’s blog, where there’s a write up of the show, interview with Rachel and many photos from the performance and backstage. It’s really interesting for me to see how people outside the modification and fetish world see suspension. Check out Tank’s opinion here: Rachel Friere Couture Show

Rachel’s last show at Torture Garden was a collaboration with Lady Lucie latex and was basically unlike any fashion show I’d seen before. Check the video to see what I mean, it’s not the best quality but you get a few glimpses of the striking stigmatic special effects.

This time round Rachel is working with both myself and French body modification artist Lukas Zpira, hopefully we will create a piece that’s even more memorable than her Easter show.

Photos of the cage installation/performance I did at the first Belle Epoque Ball, shot by Marcus T. Love  the bloody leg with the red shoes.

Super excited to post this flyer from Suka Off advertising 3 new performances that will take place in the ‘Crash play area’ at this years Torture Garden Birthday Ball. It’s a stunning image and I’m really excited to be collaborating with Suka Off once again on a new piece Car Crash Clan – for someone as Ballard/Cronenberg obsessed as I it’s a bit of a dream come true to be performing Crash-inspired work amongst ruined car parts. Can’t wait!

More info about the event can be found at www.torturegarden.com

So once again I fall behind, massively, on updating this page, I’ll skip the predictable excuses and get straight to the good stuff.

Almost exactly a year ago I performed in a cage next to the dance floor at Torture Garden. The piece got a brief mention in an issue of Scarlet that I mentioned on here at the time and just recently I received some amazing photos of the installation from Kamil Janowski. Here’s a handful of my faves.

It’s been a while since I travelled overseas to perform, so I’m all kinds of excited and nervous about taking to the stage in France next month for the International Body Art Festival at Souterrain Porte V.

The festival runs from September 25 to October 3, climaxing in a fetish, body art & cabaret night curated by London’s own Torture Garden (Meaning there’ll be a lot of familiar faces over in Nancy that weekend!)

It’s at this event that I’ll be performing, once again working with AMF to create some beautiful chaos with flesh hooks and corsets.

AMF performances are always an enjoyable challenge for me. Every time I team up with the driving force behind the group, Louis Fleischauer,  I find myself trying something new, whether it’s discovering the joy of suspending from a spinning rig as I did at Club Antichrist in February, or learning that I am in fact strong enough to handle piercings through my mouth, chest and back all at once, as was the case at the Noise and Blood festival in Poland last year, and of course, I get to do all this whilst wearing Louis’s incredible corset creations.

My feelings about this trip have been pretty mixed, I’m going through a pretty stressful time at the moment and have been questioning whether spending a weekend in another country is really the best idea right now. Things are changing though, and the closer it gets to October 3rd the more I find myself looking forward to it all.

An installation I did back in March at Torture Garden has got a brief write up in the June 09 issue of  Scarlet magazine. It’s not entirely accurate, but you know what they say about publicity, and I still get a thrill each time I see my name (or face) in print.

In the Scarlet piece, Sarah Berry writes:

A DJ announced that Trauma Unit would shortly be performing and I settled down to watch a caged girl wearing black underwear and a medical collar putting pins in her arm. After flailing around she pulled out the pins, caught the blood in a bowl and then drank it. Some of the audience walked out, but I was rooted to the spot, equally horrified and in awe.

I feel I should point out that I didn’t drink any blood, I just poured it over myself, as you can vaguely see in the picture above. As for pins, I always use hypodermic needles for these kinds of piercings.  Still, nice little write up.

[Image: Trauma Unit installation at Torture Garden by Dafydd Owen]