I'm a Phoenix, Bitch

A deeply personal show about postnatal breakdown from acclaimed performance artist Bryony Kimmings.

Bryony Kimmings creates multi-platform art works which aim to provoke change. Through script and photographs this book documents the show I'm a Phoenix, Bitch, Kimmings' personal response to the trauma of having post-natal breakdown.

In 2016, Bryony nearly drowned. Postnatal breakdowns, an imploding relationship and an extremely sick child left her sitting beneath the waves hoping she could slowly turn to shell.

Two years later she was able to deal with life again, but wears the scars of that year like a dark and heavy cloak. Who do we become after trauma? How do we turn pain into power? How do we fly instead of drown?

Bryony Kimmings returned to performance in 2018 with her first solo show in nearly a decade. A mythical legend performed straight from a heart still pulsing with pain. Combining personal stories with epic film, soundscapes and ethereal music, Bryony creates a powerful, dark and joyful work about motherhood, heartbreak and finding inner strength.

"Bryony Kimmings’ solo performance is acutely painful in places but it’s actually an easy sell: this is an extraordinary piece of theatre. I’m a Phoenix, Bitch shows Kimmings is an artist of exceptional integrity, compassion, imagination and guts." (The Guardian)

We will need new myths to survive the end of existence as we know it; for Bryony it is that of the invincible and fearless woman; a tale Bryony wishes she had known from birth.