Phoenix Rousiamanis: Patchwork Girls

Photo: Chrysanthi Tsichti

For many trans-feminine people, including myself, the voice is incongruent with our sense of self and therefore can be a major source of dysphoria. Patchwork Girls musically explores and celebrates the trans voice as a source of pleasure.

The title of the project is inspired by Shelley Jackson’s “Patchwork Girl”, a hypertext work based on Marry Shelley’s gothic novel “Frankenstein”. In this work, the aborted female monster created by Victor Frankenstein is sawn back together by Marry Shelley herself and becomes her lover. She is a cyborg who is queer, disproportioned, and visibly scarred. There is something about Patchwork Girl that I can really empathize with in terms of how I relate to my voice and hence to my body. Through this piece, I want to explore the fringes of the voice, where it breaks and screeches, and bring the queer monstrosity of the human body to the forefront – finding beauty and empowerment in its fragile vulnerability. The sound world of Patchwork Girls is inspired by the aggressive bubblegum-pink production of experimental electronic and hyper-pop artists such as Sophie, Himera, Arca, and Blood of Aza, whereas the destructive fragility of the vocals is influenced by artists such as Björk and Diamanda Galás.

During my fellowship at Onassis AiR, I will specifically be looking at how this project relates to a Greek context. As a Greek expatriate, there are so many things I love about the country I grew up in: the landscape, the community-based mentality, the traditions, the culinary and musical Middle Eastern influence, the Balkan bleakness, and the lingering sense of a pagan past. Unfortunately, all these things are inextricably linked with the oppressive discourses that have been prevailing in Greek culture for way too long. With this project, I want to reclaim the above through music that highlights the innate queerness in Greek culture – from the flamboyance of traditional clothes to the queer-like voices of many Greek folk singers.

A study in finding one’s own euphoric voice, whether literal or metaphorical, Patchwork Girls is meant to be a healing process that through song and dance, sorrow and celebration, has the power to transform an ugly past into a beautiful future, to transform hatred into love and trauma into compassion.

Margarita Nikitaki

Creator's Note

Prior to my one-month residency at Onassis AiR, I was planning to have a four-track EP named “Patchwork Girls” written and recorded. “Patchwork Girls” musically explores and celebrates the trans voice as a source of pleasure in contrast to its usual reading as an agent of dysphoria. Through this EP, I wanted to explore the fringes of my voice, where it breaks and screeches, and bring the queer monstrosity of the human body to the forefront – finding beauty and empowerment in its fragile vulnerability. Furthermore, it was an exploration of my bittersweet relationship with my homeland, Greece, that I left many years ago to pursue my career and to feel the freedom to explore and express my identity.Upon my arrival in Athens, I was very concerned about my wellbeing as a trans person in Greece, because I had not been back since transitioning. However, my flatmates and now dear friends, Agape Harmani and Dante Buu, as well as the Onassis AiR team made me feel instantly comfortable, reassured, and welcomed, and for this I am very grateful. Following the initial meetings at the AiR offices, I decided to use the production budget to pay local queer artists to collaborate with. After personal research and help from the Foundation I approached actress Kassandra El Najjar and multidisciplinary drag artist Fruit Gillette (Christos Tsiabakaris), who both enthusiastically accepted to collaborate.

For the first two weeks of the residency I was developing some musical material, drawing mood boards, compiling and refining the list of artists I wanted the sound of this EP to be influenced by, watching films relevant to the topic, and sketching some lyrics here and there. Meanwhile, I was also meeting and texting with my collaborators regularly. During these meetings we would talk about our lives, share common experiences and influences, and brainstorm things that we would like to do together. It was important to me that these collaborations be a true dialogue with other unique individuals, not just me telling them what I want but them expanding on my experiences and interests. After developing close friendships with both artists, we started drafting some ideas. Christos (Fruit Gillete) would send me bits of Greek text to work on while I was crafting the instrumental part of the track we were doing together. Kassandra and I would meet in person often to improvise with spoken word and live music, and then we would always have coffee and gossip, with me occasionally recording bits of our conversation (with her consent of course), because I quickly realized she is the kind of person who spontaneously comes up with completely iconic phrases – somehow funny, crude, and profoundly meaningful at the same time. I wanted to capture her wittiness in this piece and do a kind of portrait of her. The piece, named “To feel whole”, very quickly began to move around the theme of self-compassion, soothing your inner child-self, and treating your body as a home. On the other hand, the track with Fruit Gillette, “Gineka HD”, focused more on the coldness of online dating and the trauma that surfaces in queer relationships and relationships to parents.

I made sure that the remaining two solo tracks of the EP, “The Butcher” and “Stockholm Lake”, where pretty much ready and recorded by the middle of the third week of the residency, as they depended solely on me. “The Butcher” describes previous sexual relationships with men where I was becoming whatever they wanted me to be, hence cutting me up like a butcher. “Stockholm Lake” was the most intense and hard track of the EP to make, as it recalls some very traumatic childhood experiences of mine that are too upsetting and gruesome to write about explicitly. The title came about because, when at the AiR apartment, Dante would often describe my behaviors as “Stockholm syndrome” in a joking and very caring way. Being back in Greece definitely felt like the right opportunity to finally write this track, as it was festering inside me for a while. I feel extremely grateful to the people I had around me that helped me feel comfortable and strong enough to do this. It felt like it really helped reclaim my relationship with Greece.

Finally, during the last two weeks of the residency, with most of the material having been realized, we set up the -3 Studio for recording. Everything was performed, written, and recorded by myself and my collaborators in that studio.

By the end of the Onassis AiR residency all of my aims were met. It was definitely a lot to get done in a month, and, upon reflection, I would have aimed for a slightly shorter or longer stay. However, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life and was incredibly fulfilling professionally and personally.