The Artist Explains: Lucy DK - 'Family Drama'
Lucy DK talks to us candidly about the concept behind her single and music video, ‘Family Drama’ , which explores the themes of trauma and facade and hopes to inspire healing.
How did you decide on the video treatment/visual for the ‘Family Drama’ music video?
I was studying Performance Art with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. She made me think about body and movement in a way I never had before. Once we spent a whole class just sleeping, while she moved around us making different sounds, bringing us in and out of sleep. My last video had been much more of a narrative story, and I wanted this one to explore the stories we tell in much more subtle ways. With our bodies, our bad habits, our silences. There's a saying in performance art that in theatre blood is ketchup, but in performance art, blood is blood. Thankfully there was no blood involved in this piece! But it was very important to me that we were really feeling and doing these actions for real, not acting. A couple of my artist friends held a special performance art workshop for the actors. From there we were able to really let instinct take over.
How does the video connect with the song?
The song is about trauma and facade. I wrote it in a moment when I was deeply sad but presenting myself as fully functional. The video gets at that parallel with its two main settings. One is a place of darkness, where trauma is fully on display. The second is a brighter place, where darker things are covered things up. There is a third setting though, that appears briefly. The outside. That's a place where I think both things can exist together.
Any unforeseen behind the scenes/making-of stories you can share?
One of the scenes is filmed in my friend Logan's house in Nashville. He is the most giving person, and also so fun and up for anything that obviously he was like "of course you can sit on my kitchen counter top in this long ballgown dress and sing at the top of your lungs." But then his whole extended family turned up expectedly and walked through the door. I was probably not what they were expecting to see. But they were very nice about it.
Could you tell us more about the ideas/themes used?
There's a real theme of family, especially sisterhood, which has been hugely empowering for me. The last shot is a direct representation of my real siblings and I. It was kind of a sad moment for me, to film that, because we've not been able to sit down together like that in real life. Another theme is what we pass down to the next generation. The voiceover at the start of the video kind of gets at how so much trauma is generational. Breaking that cycle is hard, and not always possible. But it was a real eureka moment for me to stop and realise, "wow I'm now actually in a position where I have the space and time to work on myself." And so that final shot is also a hopeful one, because it's like, "look at this new blood. Look at how determined we are to come together in love and do things differently."
What do you hope people take away from watching the video?
I'm maybe a selfish artist, in that my work is always for me first. I make work to process, to understand, to feel seen. But then with the sharing and release comes the connection. That's very powerful. At almost all my shows now I play a song called ‘Bye to My Last White Boy for the Foreseeable Future’. It's about boycotting white boys for a while because they were treating me badly on the dating scene. The only reason I kept playing it was because almost every single time without fail another black girl would come up to me and say how hard she felt that song and that it was very validating. It's such a feeling of connection to know that a song I wrote to validate my own feelings can do that for someone else. With ‘Family Drama’, it's the same thing. I hope the work can break some silences. I hope it can be a conversation starter. I hope it can inspire healing.
Interview by Karla Harris