Coming up through the world of freely improvised music and spontaneous site specific performance happenings on the avant garde fringe, namely the London Musicians collective, The Klinker Club, The Termite Club, The London Film Co-Op, The China Pig, The Mopomoso, Southgate was encouraged by the absurdity of that scene to 'have a go'. In The early 90's already a bit jaded of making artworks solely in response to musicians own creativity she looked to making performance work herself. She took advantage of the arts council's improvised music touring scheme to co-organise three large scale nationwide tours. These saw site specific artworks made, manipulated, trashed, dismantled and moved on at every venue. Props and costumes were chosen for their absurdist qualities as well as for their visual and sculptural potential and their sonic abilities. Extravagant sets were made from street finds, domestic objects mixed with art materials, ladders, poles, foam, polystyrene. Southgate's degree training in metalwork gave her an ability to construct real time sculpture using anything to hand within the whole environment of the gig.
