In 2018 I only participated in my own creation AMASS at Emergency: A full day out for the curious - although I did feel at the time that this was the most cohesive, fully-realised and entertaining piece of work that I have created. I did briefly appear in a gallery film at HOME, something I participated in at MIF17, although this was just crowd scenes and not the specific part I filmed for the event, which never made the BBC4 or the gallery cut of the documentary.
It is strange how momentum quickly turns to stasis, activity to inertia. Progress rapidly becomes history.
I don't know why the opportunities have dried up - certainly something to do with vogues for community inclusion ending - or at least the way they relate to funding - which is the key driver of community activity at the professional level. Public-participation nudity has similarly disappeared. There no longer seems to be installations or performances. Spencer Tunick has spent all my goodwill; no one else has stepped in to replace him with projects requiring bodies. And I am no longer so confident with my body anyway. The fears that evaporated in 2010 with Everyday People have returned and fogged everything.
Whatever has happened across the numerous activity streams I was accessing the evaporation has taken my confidence with it. I no longer have any confidence that I would actually put myself forward for anything new: experience seems to have taught me what 'suits me' and what is 'not suited to my interests'.
As for creating my own new work, the feelings of fraudulence - which have always been a quiet voice at the back of my head - are more compelling than the energy or imagination required to organise and design anything new. I have plenty of ideas for improving the elements of AMASS that I was not - or less - happy with but never having moved beyond opportunities to show 'new' work, developing an existing one seems insurmountably problematic.