Bloom Girl

Amassing over 35,000 social media followers, film-maker and artist Charli Burrowes takes a real swipe at the platform which brought her into the spotlight in this gritty one-woman show Bloom Girl, now on show at the brand new state-of-the-art Talbot Theatre, part of the fully-refurbished Thomas Dixon Centre. Complete with an introductory foyer displaying two voluptuous femme fatales gyrating in glass cases, a selection of her art, ladies in pink questioning your social media morals and a colourful flower for all, this abstract theatrical experience is designed to demonstrate the emerging superficiality of social media and those who follow it. It also includes an extra dish of pop-art with plenty of panache; and is very much ‘in the pink’!

With many years of experience in the industry, Ms Burrowes decided to set up an experiment by planting a fake ‘influencer’ at a Sydney fashion week and as predicted soon found the ‘plant’ being picked up by mainstream moguls like Vogue and the like. Along with her increasing distaste for the ever-increasing banality of an online existence, this all led her to start creating ideas for a live show, another kind of Fleabag entity away from life on the mini-screen. As she says, “Social media used to be a place where artists could freely share their work, but what was once a digital wonderland is now a bottomless content pit designed to keep the algorithm well fed.”

A portion of those induced negativities came across in her writing and performance: her character seemed cynically possessed, fixated purely by appearance only with the focus being on how the opposite sex sees her. Though of course this is a common denominator in real life, particularly in the fashion world, in this instance there were regular references to her private life, some quite humorous (in particular, an encounter with a foot-fetished pick-up) that pointed towards the lack of soul and depth she was starting to crave. If this was intended, it certainly came across, keeping in mind that what one criticises can sometimes be a reflection of concurrent personal turmoil.