I had the pleasure of being invited to moderate the “Embodiment” workshops, but the biggest joy came through the opportunity to engage first-hand with the investigations, questions and insights that each workshop proposed. Charlotte, Dages, Elisabeth and Matej offered us, as participants, the chance to collectively confront the contradictions inherent to our bodies and address how we have been conditioned to (not) feel and reflect on the knowledge they carry. What do we actually mean when we speak about our body, or a body? Do we acknowledge the deep connections that we each have with the bodies around us—the fruiting, collective, uncontainable, the ancestral and what can be conceptualised as the monstrous?
As a non-binary trans* artist and activist, who has been engaged in performance art for over 20 years, I have a palpable sense of bodies… in motion, in protest, in collaboration, in tension and in transition. Right now, my own body is changing in a very acute and manifest way relative to what would be deemed “normal” (by most) processes of transformation, such as ageing or exercising, and “monstrous” (by some) as I smear Testosterone gel on my shoulders every morning and show off the flat chest that top surgery gave me after desperately yearning for it for so long.
I consider the bodies that came before me that helped make this possible, and the bodies around me right now that do not have the access or privileges that I have. I think about the bodies that cannot choose the visibility or invisibility that they need. And I mourn the non-human bodies that make up most of this world yet cannot claim or are allowed less agency to stop its destruction.
These are all things that I have a difficult time putting profound or sometimes even coherent words to. Words that can distill and expand on the feelings that my body has… in the way that I as an artist have been able to use performance in the past. I’ve recently discovered, however, that drawing can get me close to this; I’m experiencing surprising connections between performance art and drawing. For me drawing has turned out to be a way to collect, collage and make discoveries through ephemeral impressions and fleeting connections. It has become yet another tool to deal with affect and support a stronger connection between my feelings, my own body and the bodies around me. Through this set of drawings, I try think along with, expand on and pose questions in collaboration with my experience of the workshops with Charlotte, Dages, Elisabeth and Matej.