In a time where society controls and curates every space surrounding us, we tend to reject that our bodies are human: we leak, bleed, excrete, chafe, feel pain, and carry lifetimes of trauma. Some individuals end up continually disavowing their own embodied experiences just to get through the day. Having done so in my own life, I now choose to turn back to the body as site of abjection. By creating multimedia sculptural and performative works, I make visible the often invisible trauma and pain. I queer the intended use and traditional gendering of materials (such as latex, yarn, and wax) creating tactile environments and experiences that both intrigue and repel. Sound is an important tool in both the documentation of my performances, as well as other more immersive works. Within installations, for example, sound becomes a boundary that aids in subverting the viewer’s own expectations. The result redirects auditory noise and visual cues from the outside world. Thus the viewer is provided with a scene that has ties to the outside world but branches off of familiarity, disconnecting the senses.
The performances are localized in my fleshy body. The viewer becomes a witness to live physically and emotionally exhaustive experiences. Longer and exhaustive performances demand my body be pushed to its limits. The way in which viewers happen upon my stressed body within these moments are curated by controlled guidelines I have set up from the beginning. I have done so to remain protected within an already objectifiable medium. Revisiting performance spaces becomes an important guideline within my work. This kind of choice can be seen taking place in the form of remnants. Recordings of private, personal lived reentries into performances becomes another element I choose to share within my performative practice. By revisiting these sites, I am refusing the perception or treatment of pain and trauma as teleological. Coming from past experiences of victimization, choice and control within both my materials and my performances becomes a way for me to heal from disassociation from experiences endured.
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