enbeing
Through clay, performance, and video documentation, I am exploring what it means to perform and reclaim my nonbinary gender and body. I use making as a way to process the trauma I have experienced in my becoming. Embodied ways of processing invite me to be present with my body. I record videos of each performance in order to understand what I look like and how I move through space. Curating a safe space for this to occur allows me to be more present, and, therefore, helps me understand how my body moves through or exists in space. I am thinking about what it means to perform a nonbinary gender and what it means to be a nonbinary role model - someone for future generations of queer kids.
cleanse
The maker and the vessel have a mutual relationship, they bathe each other, washing away anything that might've settled. The inspiration for the title also offers commentary on religion, mainly certain branches Christianity, for wanting to cleanse people of their sins, such as homosexuality. In contrast, the maker is cleansing themself of the societal expectations put on them because of their body and of the judgements made because of who they are and who they love. The maker is learning to love themself, is that so sinful?
The Field
Is nonbinarism about getting in touch and staying in touch with your childlike wonder? When you’re so young, gender doesn’t matter, it’s arbitrary. What’s more interesting is catching a grasshopper, wondering how planes stay in the air, or what's for dinner. What would it be like if we were taught to hold onto that enchanting disbelief? We’ve got this one life, why not be the truest version of you there is?
trans(formation)
A slab of reclaimed clay is to be flattened into a pancake with a variation of foot wedging, and then to be rolled back up into a similar form using mostly the feet. This process is a representation of the artist's trans and nonbinary exeperience. They were given a body and mind, and in order to become themself, they had to break down notions of who they thought they were, who society taught them they had to be.