Artist Statement

My body of work this year is primarily concerned with the topic of queer medicalisation, and how the medical industrial complex causes harm to queer bodies, either directly or indirectly, while perpetuating and enabling societal perceptions of normative bodies through the power of the natural. Through this body of work I engage with a variety of traumas inflicted upon queer bodies within the medical sphere; from assigning gender at birth as a form of institutionalized socio-political violence; violent, non-consensual “treatments” such chemical castration, forced intersex surgery, and conversion therapy; to denial of service by homophobic medical practitioners, or a disregard for gender or sexual identity during treatment. Engaging in a space of repetitive healing through the durational materiality and process of crochet in order to create a series of sculptural works, these bulbous, organic forms encourage a tactile approach to catharsis and healing from queer medical trauma through their materiality and plush tactility, and call on the viewer to consider bodies, and modes of being, outside of cisheteronormative ideals of the natural. These forms make reference to the variety of organs and organic processes present within the human body, while still maintaining a decidedly queered, alien, posthuman aesthetic to them; while the bright red mercurochrome stains on the strands of yarn that would typically be hidden away in a traditional crochet piece call back to the medical materiality of mercurochrome, and situate the work in this medicalised space.

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You can download my progress document here in order to receive a more holistic, in-depth view of my process throughout the year

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