Mr. Benn I have always been fascinated by Mr.Benn. He was a 1970’s stop picture animation character, written by the illustrator David McKee. Mr. Benn was an ordinary man who lived on an ordinary road. He went to work every day wearing a bowler hat & pin striped suit (stereotypical boring commuter in the 1970s, think Reggie Perrin in cartoon form). You can find the whole series on You Tube ( https://youtu.be/pYc4nhLpnKQ). One day Mr.Benn found a strange shop & wanted to go in. He found it was a magical fancy dress shop, with a strange shop keeper who invited him to choose an outfit to try on. He chose an outfit & when he had finished dressing he saw that in the corner of the dressing room was a secret door. He went through the door and found a magical world that corresponded to what he had chosen to dress in. If he’d dressed as a Knight, then there was a world with a dangerous dragon, if he’d dressed as an astronaut then it was a space world complete with aliens in it. After a while in the magical world, just as something really good was going to happen – the shop keeper would appear and tell Mr.Benn that it was time to return to his own life. Aferwards, walking home alone Mr.Benn would think it had been a dream but then he’d find in his pocket a keepsake from the magical world to remind him of his adventure. The Ordinary Woman meets Mr.Benn show was a free, fun playful opportunity for people to come into the gallery and look through the dressing up clothes. They choose an outfit and put it on & had their photo taken. I emailed copies of the photos to the people & blanked out faces & other recognisable features and uploaded it to the @TheOrdinarywomanmeetsMr.Benn Instagram page. They were welcome to take their your own photos too. Then we had a quick chat (5 minutes or so) about why they chose an outfit & how it made them feel & how having the opportunity to do this made them feel too. Some people didn't dress up but liked to talk about the costumes, talking about memories or TV shows or anything that came to mind. Some people just liked to come into the gallery and just look but not talk. As ever with the gallery there was no expectation, no obligation & no pressure. If people wished to have a longer time with the outfits & talk more privately then we booked a time when the gallery is not open. Also people were invited if they wished to bring their own outfits, costumes, characters if they wanted & then dress up for photos. Everything was private & confidential. I call myself The Ordinary Woman because I am just an ‘ordinary woman’ – nothing special; just an ordinary run of the mill woman who tries to make her self do things or say things that come into her mind. I then think about why I wanted to do it or say it, how it made me feel, did I actually do the thing I wanted to do, if not – why not? I once saw a post on facebook that was written by nurses who looked after people on their death beds. It was a list of the regrets & wisdoms of people at the end of their life. The overall theme was that most regrets come from not doing something rather than something they did. My biggest fear that one day I will be on my death bed and regret that I didn’t do something just because I was scared of someone’s opinion of me or scared that I might fail or be judged a fool. That is why I really try to push my self into doing things that I think will be fun, interesting & exciting rather than holding my self back because of feeling shy, silly or self conscious. But, as an ordinary person, with the regular insecurities, I do still hold my self back, I do get scared, feel silly & foolish every single day (Even writing this is making me cringe). Anyway, this project is one step towards understanding all of that stuff. The plan is, if I can learn about it & understand it about myself then maybe I can help others to understand it about themselves too.
