Recipient of the School of Art Honours Travelling Grant.
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SOMETIMES I WRITE SO CONFIDENTLY I START TO BELIEVE MYSELF
My practice-led research uses queer ecology as a framework to explore phenomenological spaces of encounter/occupancy. My practice constructs both metaphorical and physical microcosms: spaces of shared dialogue, symbolic warmth and sensitive interactions, highlighting queer embodiment and experience. The production of a space, within the physical place of my studio is the driving force in my creative practice, utilising items of invitation, room for conversation and significant tropes towards homeliness. My studio – as a space – becomes psychologically welcoming. As I design and redesign, and as I perform and hold impromptu events within this space, I control and assert my own agency, queering the space, embodying the space, embodying other queer narratives around me.
This space houses the establishment of narratives that subvert the problematic welcoming of enculturation in the sphere of romantic love and how these histories are cultivated within the current state of contemporaneity. My performances, events, poetry, words and language use personal stories and anecdotes about my own romantic love life. Through this genealogical storytelling methodology, I identify a new narrative to the grand narrative of hegemonic love. Within my practice, I write about my own personal experiences, but also establish a sense of community through storytelling. Language is crucial in storytelling; therefore, my practice is concerned with experimenting with presentations and interpretations of language.
My multidisciplinary art practice interweaves performance, installation, sculpture, literature, creative writing, and ceramics. These mediums are presented auto-theoretically through the exploration of personal/political queer and feminist narratives. My art practice engages with my own identity politics and experiences as a queer person to develop a working archive, an alternative, sincere ecology.
