Barnaby is a Leeds born London based milliner currently studying at the RCA. A drag performer and graduate of English Literature - Barnaby uses the hat as a familiar, headsized anchor in an undefined collage of sights and sounds. Often utilising digital projection, live performance and stage effects, Barnaby’s hats are peepholes to a dense, dreamlike study of queer identity and universal desires.
Barnaby Horn
'As a milliner my practice is naturally consumed with the human head and with that, thoughts, dreams, translation and meaning and so it has been a challenge to work with silence in proximity to the head’s continual breathing.' Barnaby Horn
HOW TO READ CLOUDS
Often alluding to the existence of a dense dreamworld and a universal blank canvas that occupy exactly the same space - ‘How to Read Clouds’ examines the human instinct to construct meaning in the face of silence.
Inspired by haiku and the expansive power of the short form, Barnaby forgoes narrative and instead reveals elements of an undefined language: highly saturated shapes, found poetry, “messages from above”, mark-making in earth, meditations on silence, introductions to queer characters, a moment with the fragility of human life, night, the relinquishing of a search for home and the nightmare of death.
