Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

SøEdited Team:
SøCreative Director / Arts Editor Review: Chris Saint Sims 
​SøFashion Director: Savannah Barthorpe

It Will End In Tears...

​Through the perspective of Pamela Phatsimo Sinstrum 2D set design built in plywood, evoking the theatre world and the Barbican its self, the unfolding ‘kitchen sink drama’ portrayed on sheet plywood in the style of a drama novel unfolds, with its visuals enticing trauma and danger.

Arriving at the opening dressed in an old 60s rain mack, flat cap, my dads purple 70s kipper tie and a pair of dead mens shoes with mettal healed blakey's, I was more appropriately dressed than I would have imagined, as was my date Sara Darling, coincidently dressed similar style, we both looked oddly suspicious...  

Pamela Phatsimo sets her narrative world building through a series of paintings arranged within site-specific installation. 

This new body of work unfolds in what is an ever evolving cast of the artists alter ego, along with the striking presence of the public mingling, sitting and participating within the sets themselves, creates an eerie atmosphere.

Artist Pamela Phatsimo & SoEdited Chris Saint Sims

Ones eyes, ears and senses are drawn away from the exhibition to that fleeting shadow or glimpse of another figure on set, between the art work or loitering in the shadows and wings within this very 3D exhibition slash performance.

​This is a visceral and unexpected engagement, leaving me remembering how important it is to be both physically and emotionally engaged in art, rather than simply viewing it on my phone while shuffling a million other items through my brain at the same time. ​

Set in a mid-century colonial out post, we explore the dulcet existence of our protagonist Berttina and her new life as she navigates this rural setting. 

Collaborating with Remco Osorio Lobato on the set design, evoking domestic and public space, separation and voyeurism. 

Via the narrative of film noir, questions of fem fatale and the misogynistic depiction of women in film are displayed. As we personally enter the space we become characters and witnesses in this unfolding drama, murder and criminal proceedings. 

As I walked through the set with my metal heeled shoes clipping off the ply wood floor and echoing around the vast Barbican gallery, it stirred up a sense of the authoritarian. A child slowly walked in the shadows draping his arm along the balustrade, with his eyes shielded by the rail its self.  2 men sat on a plywood bench viewed between sets with faint whispers of a conversation. All creating a sense of ever changing drama, narrative and intrigue. ​

​Exhibition details 
Barbican Centre
18th September - 24th January 2025