Buoyancy
2022
Site-oriented installation at 500 Capp St.
This piece was shown as a part of Libby Black’s solo exhibition titled The Way Things Also Are at 500 Capp Steet, with featured artists AJ Serrano, Sanaz Safanassab and myself. The show made space for queer conversations and interventions within the former home of conceptual artist, David Ireland.
I projected my film of TGNC and queer swimmers + bathers onto the ceiling of the David Ireland house by strapping a projector to the banister with a custom made harness. The harness is made out of floral printed fabrics that artist Maura O’Daughrty and I created from photos of plants that were deemed “unfit” by 20th century Petaluma horticulturist, Luther Burbank. I came across these photos while researching the relationship between Bay Area horticultural practices and the forced sterilization of queer, trans, neurodivergent, and immigrant people in California during the first half of the 20th century. I’ve been using the fabrics to upholster a number of sculptures that celebrate the variance that eugenics attempts to erase.
Visitors to the house were directed to look up towards embodied queer and trans pleasure, joy, and power.