Ollie Musson is a queer, trans artist, living and working in Reading. They perform as Sheer Obsession, and use drag, film, sound, and text to create surreal narratives of transformation. His work tells and celebrates the stories of the insides and the outsides of his body. Notions of illness, pain and disability lay alongside an embodied trans experience of gender, creating an intersectional Queer and Crip strand of research.

The moments of transformation in his work occur in the intersections of mental and physical illness, where they critique standards of health through expanding on disableist frameworks of bodily experiences. His practice is shifting to embody Crip time and accessibility – the way they create work, and collaborate with others, navigates an ethics of care. His work responds to the pressure of productivity within capitalism upon queer, trans and disabled people, and searches alternative frameworks to make and share queer, trans, disabled stories and experiences.

Through producing and curating cabarets and art events, Ollie has contributed to cultivating a local drag scene as a form of resistance against Reading’s gentrified, commuter town atmosphere. Marginalised queer communities and the working class established drag and cabaret as forms of resistance, entertainment, and community. Through this history he has learnt to prioritise care, safety, and connection with audiences; performing is a community resource, a site of shared transformation, a portal to another world. Paying queer and trans artists to perform in communal spaces, in a town that does not prioritise them, in a country that does not protect them, is a radical act.

In 2018, Ollie co-founded Double Okay, a queer and trans artist collective in Reading. They curate performance nights, exhibitions and workshops to create safer platforms for marginalised voices and LGBTQIA+ people. For more information about the work they do with Double Okay, head to www.doubleokay.org