Schappylle Scragg took her spiritual journey to a new level; branching out from mindfulness colouring in to Bong Yoga. She developed her method of Mystical Movement Yoga at her retreat in Ubud and first premiered it at Disco Infirmo exhibition at Trocadero Art Space in Footscray. You can see a small clip of her in action under a giant disco turd opening her chakras to the Tibetan throat singing inspired drone of Renny Kodgers.
Images of Schappylle Scragg Yoga Mystique
Schappylle Scragg took her journey of personal exploration to a new level by developing her Mystic Mandala Colouring in therapy books. These were distributed at the Festival of The Photocopier and one image was featured in Feminist Colour In books created and exhibited by Kaisa Konnturi and Kim Donaldson in Europe and Australia
exhibition in 2016.
These were a series of vulvas constructed from beer cans, exhibited at the VCA in 2010. they were part of an installation by “Schappylle Scragg” performing a satirical homage to feminist performance art and central core imagery.
These are images of two protest rugs I created from crochet (with some help from a couple of volunteers) from August 2013 to March 2014.
the piece was inspired by the Knit Your Revolt collective
This is a piece called “Cutantiram: Colours of Freedom”. It was exhibited and sold in 2014 as part of a fundraiser for Palmera – and NGO engaged in Sri Lankan rebuilding and refugee assistance.
This work is a tribute to the Tamil refugees who are detained in Australia’s detention centres with no plan for release.
It shows the Tamil word for “Freedom”, which is pronounced Cutantiram.
I first learnt the word “cutantiram” during a protest vigil last year. The Tamil refugees inside MITA centre in Broadmeadows were on a hunger strike, and I was part of a group of protestors chanting and lighting candles outside. We yelled “cutantiram” and they yelled “freedom” and the memory still brings tears to my eyes.
Due to their official security risk I cannot share their names, or too many of their stories, so I will try to tell you something of their warmth, generosity and dignity of some of the people who helped me make this work.
There is the vegetarian schoolteacher who has been in detention for 6 years. He was 20 when he left Sri Lanka, and had a fiancé, a family and a home, where he rescued stray dogs and cared for them. His fiancé married someone else, and he is a handsome young man who has no hope of remarrying or starting a family or a career. He looks after goldfish in the detention centre, and makes jewellery and presents for children.
There is the journalist who distributes presents from visitors among the detainees – making sure that new arrivals with no shoes or clothes or toys get them. He writes incredible stories and poetry which cannot be published under his name.
There is another young man who always offers me lunch when I visit him in detention. He and the other Sri Lankans volunteers in the kitchen at the centre, cooking meals that are delivered to a community soup kitchen in Melbourne. Even as detainees with no hope for release, these people provide a generous service to Australians on low incomes.
Using crochet allowed me to take the work inside the centre while it was being made. My Tamil friends inside showed me how to write the letters and who told me that the colours yellow and red were banned in Sri Lanka. They suggested that I add layers of lots of other bright colours, to celebrate their hope for freedom. These brave, generous people touched the letters as they were being made, and showed them to other Tamils in detention, and smiled in surprise to hear “cutantiram” spoken by an Australian, in a place that continues to deny them any freedom.
Nanna Madge is quite simply, a lovely old lady! She is a member of the Glen Innes Lawn Bowls Association and proudly wears her bowling whites at any important social occasion.
She is also the proud grandmother of Aussie Icon, Schappylle Scragg, and made her first tentative forays into public life, filling in for Scragg’s hectic public schedule in Sydney in 2007, comparing the sound of Failure performance night at Petersham Bowling Club in August 2007.
Inspired by a couple of sherries and the spellbinding performance of Screws Loose, Nanna fell in love with the liberating qualities of experimental music and contemporary performance art.
She felt impelled to take off all her clothes and celebrate her mature femininity in an erotic strip-tease and lap dance; a performance repeated at Vanessa Wagner’s amateur strip-competition at the Newtown Hotel, where she revealed a disguise as a bridal Schappylle Scragg.
Nanna moved to Melbourne in 2009, where she hosts tea parties, although she hasn’t abandoned her wild side.
She finds the heat tends to bring out the best and worst in her, as well as a couple of sherries.
In 2010 on a visit to Sydney she found herself lured into an international pornography ring, collaborating with holographic love on a series of images exploring abjection, allure and ageing.
I was lucky enough to participate in a collaboration with Sari Kivinen is part of 2 screws loose in Free Fall inside the Oxford Art Cube in November 2012.
It was documented and edited by project curator Bianca Willoughby here.
I hosted a queer performance night at Hares and Hyenas in Melbourne in June 2013. This involved collaborating with other performers Amy, ZooFi and the Love Pump.
I also presented a Cindy Sherman style whirlwind of four Alter Egos
Schappylle Scragg is a satirical character created in 2005. She has collaborated with a range of Sydney artists, performers and photographers, including Catherine Davies, Sari Kivinen, The Motel Sisters, Jane Polkinghorne, The Wild Boys, Paola Talbert and Emmy Em.
These images were produced as a series of A3 posters that were exhibited in December 2013 for the Building Building fundraiser by the Refugee Art Project
Mayhem's Art 