Sissy Misfit is building an underground utopia

If Rick Owens cold emails you asking to collab, it’s either a scam or a sign that you’re cool as fuck. In 2023, despite Sissy Misfit’s initial disbelief, Owens was indeed behind a message expressing genuine admiration for her work and a wish to team up. She even asked her tech whizz friend to check the IP address.

The result of this interaction came in 2024, when the Californian designer launched his fourth Dr. Martens collection, choosing Sissy as the poster girl. The two shot a campaign at his home in Paris, and the designs were a success. So nice, they had to do it twice: this AW25 follow-up drop includes a substantial double-soled platform including steel-toe cap, knee-high and laced iterations.

Commissioned by DMs, Sissy is celebrating the launch by curating a one-off, video-based exhibition at Proposition Studios titled Engines of Utopia. The show also comprises a preview for Sissy’s new music video, X‑MAKINA – a song about her life-ruining exes – and commissions by Game Nova, Aun Helden, Charlie Jimenez, Antre Sezgin, Syntia and Kaiden Ford. Punky, camp and brutal, it’s a cogent representation of the trans and non-binary community Sissy holds dear.

Calling from her flat in Stoke Newington, Sissy – born and raised in Istanbul – recounts her journey to becoming an artist and electronic musician. After running away from her mother’s home in the conservative district of Fatih for the queer-er Beyoğlu aged 17, she threw herself into nightlife, gigging as a DJ and bartender across post-punk pubs. She formed a dark-wave band – ​“I specifically don’t disclose the name; I want it to be lore” – but soon found herself fascinated by a small bass scene emerging in clubs, such as the now-defunct Peyote and Pixie. ​“I just wanted to throw away all the guitars and acoustic instruments and buy myself a mini keyboard,” she says.

Her band gave a harsher, electronic sound a whirl, but it didn’t take off. She went solo, rebranded herself as Sissy Misfit – her government name is confidential – and for a short period continued to work in Turkey, before eventually coming to London in 2020. ​“Everything I loved about electronic music was coming from the UK,” she explains. Once here, she handed out her CV and USB sticks to every pub in Stoke Newington, Dalston and Hackney, soon picking up bookings in local watering holes. ​“I am a sucker for playing small pubs,” she smiles, name-checking Stamford Hill’s Mascara Bar as an early listing. ​“I just love an intimate gig.”

From pubs, bars followed. Eventually, she gave a breakthrough performance at Electrowerkz in 2022, covered in blood, pole dancing and eating cigarettes to the sound of gabber played on a Korg Korg Electribe ESX‑1 sampler. Promoters’ ears were pricked – if not obliterated – and whispers in the smoking area soon turned into more work. A year on, a gig at Fold cemented her status as a polymath artist thanks to her high-octane choreography and blistering breaks.

Sissy is always elaborate. ​“Like, even when I play a small pub, I will be rhinestoning things, creating a world,” she laughs. After Fold, the Rick Owens crossover happened, boosting her presence in fashion as well as clubland. She’s still staunchly underground, though, noting that Owens is the only designer brand she works with. Why? ​“Rick treats me like a family member. When I do my shoots, he asks me to stay for lunch, I grab a drink with him – he’s sober – and we eat, chat with Michèle [Lamy, Owens’ wife and business partner] and Rick’s friends. When you work with Rick, you get introduced to this whole new world of creative queer people.”

For the show, Owens and Dr. Martens have some creative oversight, but it’s primarily Sissy’s curation. Game Nova was on her radar since she came to London. Nova has previously designed masks for Arca, served as an art director for Olly Shinder and featured in a recent group show at Goswell Road. Aun Helden is a latex-loving, prosthetist, image-maker and artist who – like most in the show – works across various media. Charlie Jimenez is a performance and filmmaking surrealist. Antre Sezgin and Syntia have been part of Sissy’s world since she was in Turkey. The former has a more polished approach, while the latter is rougher and more intuitive. They wanted to work together, so Sissy is facilitating that. Finally, Kaiden Ford is an artist and writer known across the queer party circuit, sitting somewhere between a writer, poet, go-go dancer and all-round It girl.

For Sissy, the exhibition’s curatorial conceit lies in the metaphor of an engine room. ​“I believe that in life, specifically as trans people, we are gears grinding against each other to make a machine work,” she says. ​“We are building these engine rooms for ourselves to operate.”

She continues, citing a memory from her childhood in Turkey. So the story goes, her father was rustling through their storage room at home when he happened upon an old computer. He opened it up and inside was a cockroach. Sissy was freaked out, but her father explained that insects are drawn to electrical items and engines for their warmth – especially live ones. She never forgot that. ​“This idea of organic life form coming together with a mechanical life form, it just itches the autistic creative part of my brain.”

Days ahead of the show’s opening, Sissy is palpably excited. Her expectations from the audience are simple. ​“I just hope that when people come to this exhibition, they realise how mesmerising, important and vital trans art is.”

Engines of Utopia is open to the public on 7^th November at Proposition Studios