A Shape for Queerness: Glimpses, Loops, Holes, Language

Abstract

A Wreath of Snakes, A Lexicon Devil, A Hole in Time, A Single Thought is a sculptural installation of 24 large-scale drawings and an artist’s book. The work is concerned with the formation of consciousness and the ways that the shared experience of queerness affects notions of time, lineage and orientation. It examines the way queerness creates a non-reproductive lineage which stops, starts and skips across time. This installation is an articulation of the contradictory bumps and associations, both obvious and esoteric, which accompany my prolonged contemplation on the subject of queerness and the making of this work. This support paper is an investigation into the ways drawing exists as a solitary erotic practice which connects bodies across time. The research which supports this work is derived primarily from Queer theorists such as Elizabeth Freeman, Jack Halberstam, Sarah Ahmed, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. It also includes the ideas of post-colonial theorist Édouard Glissant and his investigation of ‘peripheral’ identities. This MFA support paper elucidates a thought process about queerness, time, shapes, holes, orientation, and language.