Concept – Richie Culver
Writer & Producer – Blackhaine, Micheal-Jon Mizra
Film – Blackhaine, William Markarian-Martin
Camera – Patric Kuo, Joseph Reay-Reid (Bruxism) and Louis Ellis
Design – Chris Curran
Participant is a record label and creative studio run by William Markarian-Martin and Richie Culver

'Salford-based choreographer, MC, poet and performer Blackhaine, and Hull-born contemporary artist Richie Culver join forces on DID U CUM YET / I'M NOT GONNA CUM, a two-track 20 minute audiovisual project released by UK record label and creative studio Participant. The release is an extension of Richie Culver's now infamous canvas work ‘DID U CUM YET?’, itself a wry reference to the inherently masturbatory act of posting art on social media. 

Having destroyed the original painting and released a 300 page book featuring the vitriolic Instagram comments received in response to the original piece, DID U CUM YET / I'M NOT GONNA CUM is a sonic extension of the Instagram project gone rogue, the coming together of two artists that share working-class roots and a commitment to low culture, as well as a belief in the transcendent potential in creative expression. Each artist has one leg planted firmly in Northern soil and both are united in their unflinching focus on England’s liminal spaces, as Culver told Abstract back in 2018, “I wanted to paint within the grey areas of English culture. The things that people don’t really want to talk about or admit.” 

“Some things are easier to say with writing, some things are easier to say with moving,” says Blackhaine of his origins as a dancer. Creating uncompromising work that is aggressive and vulnerable in equal measure, Blackhaine's work is the product of a multidisciplinary practice that incorporates movement, film, sound and poetry, all united in service of catharsis and confrontation. '

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