Ziah Ziah's artistic growth through creative freedom

“My overall experience has been one of growth,” says Keziah Stilwell, as she sums up her time undertaking the TKE Studios Performance Artist Fellowship. “It’s given me the space and time necessary to grow.”

“It’s hard to [create] without both at the same time,” she adds. 

It sounds simple but as many creative people know, space and time to focus on artistic ideas is hard to come by. And for Keziah, this fellowship and the exploration it has allowed for has seen a shift in her creative practice and her perception of it.

“The fellowship has opened my eyes to art in a way I haven’t experienced before,” Keziah says, adding that the critical thinking and possibility that has come with the fellowship play a part in this. 

“I’ve been in bands and done music for a while, but I never really thought of myself as an artist, and that has really changed for me.”

Keziah started the fellowship in October last year. A multidisciplinary performance artist whose pathway started in music, Keziah used to perform vocals for dark-wave pop band Black Buffalo Gold, while current solo project Ziah Ziah is leftfield synth-pop stylings.

You may also know her from Sister Joan, the hairdressing salon that perched on the corner of Northdown Road and Crawford Gardens before it closed earlier this year, with her trade forming the basis of her first fellowship show. 

Performed in March, Deeper Cut looked at the relationship between identity, ritual, reinvention and hairdressing, as well as the relationship “between clients and hairdressers, and the magic that exists within us all to help you to realise yourself”.  

“And recognising [the hairdressers] as a healing space”, Keziah goes on, expanding on Fleabag’s apt sentiment that hair is everything. “It’s not considered one, but it is”.

“It made me see hairdressing in a new light. It made me appreciate the skills I have. When you're young, all you learn is how to cut hair, how to colour hair. You’re not taught how to deal with real people, hairdressers deal with people during big life moments - deaths, marriages, break ups. 

“It’s quite ceremonial in a sense, and when you’re young, you’re not equipped to do that. You learn to tune into people and into someone’s self identity. 

“Getting it right, and really seeing people transform within themselves; it’s really amazing. [Deeper Cut] made me feel really privileged to experience that with people.”

Despite encompassing music, performance, visual arts and projections, Keziah stepped away from collaboration to produce and present the performance. 

“For this project it was important that every aspect came from me, as it is my fellowship. The whole concept; I did the film, the set, the music on my own. I wanted to push myself."

“I really felt the audience were with me and incredibly present,” Keziah adds. “I suppose I was exploring a thing that everyone could relate to.” 

Deeper Cut was the first of two performance outcomes Keziah will perform as part of the fellowship. She also runs workshops with the TEARS - the Tracey Emin Artists in Residence. The rest of her time is left for creative play and exploration. 

“The main thing is exploration, time and space,” Keziah says. “Space has been the biggest thing. I have my own studio. I feel very lucky. I hadn’t had one before.”

Through exploration, Keziah has found herself working with film - an unexpected twist spurred on by creating live projections that make her performances more immersive and which has led to Keziah shooting a short film shot at the recent Palm Bay fun fair which she is currently scoring. 

“Being in a visual art setting with artists who have works on walls that exist forever, whereas performance exists only in the moment; [It led me to think], how can I use my artform in a way that could exist forever, in a way that I don’t have to physically be there to exist?"

“That’s been a surprise element in my journey,” she adds. “I feel excited about making work that can exist without me physically being there, I can move and travel as an artist without the ongoing output so I have given myself time to make new work.” 

Going into the fellowship, Keziah knew she wanted to explore non-traditional performance spaces, following her immersive Big Mars Energy takeover of Quench Gallery last year and performing in a church as part of POW for her first show as Ziah Ziah. 

“I really loved performing in a space that wasn’t a classic gig venue,” she says. “I loved how the audience could enter somewhere they’re not used to experiencing music in. And music is so healing. Churches, for so many, are healing as a place of worship. Art galleries to many are also sacred spaces.

“In my time as a fellow, I’m incubating ideas on how to use space in unusual ways and to make immersive performances that move people.”

Alongside this, Keziah has been exploring sound healing and the idea of experiencing art through body and sound, through her performances and her TEAR workshops. 

“I like to include a healing element in my performances; immersive shows that are a journey and that hold people," she says. "I’ve been working with the gong and other healing instruments to allow people to experience art differently.”

Keziah first started to explore this idea as part of her October 2024 performance at the White Cube gallery, as a response to Tracey Emin’s show, I Followed You To The End. 

“I had to look at the painting a different way; look closely. Performance is all about how you move, and I guess looking at the art and embodying it as part of my performance. 

“You feel closer to the art and it connects the viewer and participant to the artist more.”

She explains that her practice involves focussing on a specific work of art and then experiencing the work somatically, aided by exercises or activities like gong baths - or immersions, as Keziah calls them.

“Holding these works in your mind and using a sound immersion, you go to all sorts of places. You never know what is going to happen.”

Looking ahead, Keziah has started to think about her second performance, which she will perform towards the end of her fellowship. In August and under Ziah Ziah, she’ll release Marble Eyes, an “empowering queer anthem” that pays homage to chosen families, and perform at Smugglers Festival and the TKE Studios Summer Fair. A Margate Pride performance looks likely as well, as part of the festival’s art trail. 

And beyond the fellowship, Keziah intends to continue making immersive work that “holds and heals” and “build worlds through music, film and performance as well as explore other mediums”.

“I know where I want to go,” she says. “It’s exciting.”