Puddle-Duck Jr.

SET: Sirius Lewisham Station

09–2024
Cieciura was invited to create a live performance for the exhibition: Sirius Lewisham Station, by artist duo and studio members Ellis Warren and Katie Mess. SET Lewisham is based in the former Mother Care Centre in Lewisham retail park.
Cieciura’s performance Puddle-Duck Jr. uses an adaptation of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale Of Jemima Puddle-Duck to critique the dominant neoliberal ideology of magical voluntarism. The performance was underscored by a loop from a Golden Wonderland LP that slows on each repetition. The loop’s decay is a destabilising force against the relentless repetition of capitalist ideals, now internalised—hard work leads to success, anyone can achieve anything—that gradually breaks down under the weight of lived reality. The auditory fatigue mirrors the dissonance many experience when the reality of economic hardship, systemic inequality, and structural barriers contradicts the narrative of personal responsibility and unlimited potential.


You won’t get rich in bed, hard workers need no luck. That’s what my dear old grandma said and she  [chuckle]  was a dear old duck.
Audio extract from the Golden Wonderland LP adaptation of ‘The Tale Of Jemima Puddle-Duck’, with Cicely Courtneidge as Jemima.

[Magical voluntarism] the belief that it is within every individual’s power to make themselves whatever they want to be – is the dominant ideology and unofficial religion of contemporary capitalist society…Fisher, M. (2017) ‘it’s not your fault’: Consciousness-raising as a reversal of magical voluntarism, Clinical Psychology Forum.

Modality: live performance 
Location: SET Lewisham, London

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