Shared Skins in a works in progress sculpture series and exhibition. The sculptures are very small organically shaped quilts that can be taken apart and snapped together into sculptures, garments, blankets, toys, shelters, and tapestries by participants enabling the community to continually reshape the exhibition. Some of the sculpture components will be mailed to disabled community member homes so they can participate in the evolution of the exhibition remotely.
Art Museum from bed is a distributed exhibition that show work in the homes of disabled folks in conjunction with an in-person exhibition at a gallery. For years I was tricked into the idea that real art is in art museums, real artists were the ones with galleries, selling big. Sometimes I still fall back into that mindset. But that hierarchy is yet another symptom of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of classism. Art Museum from Bed is a new/old way of exhibiting work and I believe it is vital not just to the future of my personal practice but also how to think about art objects' role in society.
The exhibition showed a series of texture sculptures called the Sensation Models. As an Autistic person with alexithymia (emotion blindness) and a chronic illness with many strange physical sensations I wanted an alternative ways to model and study feelings and sensations. Traditional tools like the emotion wheel and pain chart, that encase lived experience in two dimensional planes and linguistic cul de sacs, do not map to my experience. But more than just creating a way for me to frame and communicate my experience of emotions this project also gives me a vehicle for investigating how others experience emotions.
As the sculptures move from my home, to community homes, to the gallery and back to community homes again they create connected stories. They function as histories. Made in my home, hosted in yours, made by my hands, held in yours. They function as vessels. Made from the tailpipe of abundance, made from wasted time. They function as bodies. Made from gut punch and wet eyes, made from loud brain and heat.
