[2023]
Here Together
Recycled clay (unfired and fired), coloured slip, glaze, ceramic studio trolley, kiln props, kiln shelf, wood, found objects (from family home), zines; printer paper, printer ink, polyester thread, overhead projector, movie stills; Barbarella (1968), Alien (1979), Return to Oz (1985), and Stargate SG-1 (1997), painting by artist age 9, dialogue; Bicentennial man (1999) and Her (2013). Dimensions Vary.
‘Here Together’ is a ceramic and zine-based installation work which is expressly asexual in methodology - that is, attentive to “asexual resonances, moments, touches, or textures” (Przybylo, E., & Cooper, D. 2014. Asexual Resonances). The work ponders how asexual frameworks when applied materially can question the hierarchy of relationships and the centrality of sex? The installation situates the studio as the locus for the physical and emotive process of working through the implications of sexual and romantic expectations. Here Together references Chinese Ceramic Pillows and sci-fi blockbusters, to explore alternative symbols, representations of love, kinship and asexuality.
Contrasting elements exist in both tension and delight; fired and unfired, glazed and unglazed clay, and bound and unbound zines. These dynamic visual, processes and mediums, hold space for non-linear storytelling; an expression of tenderness - frustration - intimacy – confusion - rejection and love. By attending to asexuality as a methodology, Here Together, celebrates different ways of knowing and being that diverge from compulsory (hetero) sexuality. The zine and text elements reference the long history of queer kinship formed through zine-making. These zines are offerings of my asexual resonances – of dreams, collages, writings, and process images from the ceramics studio.
Image Courtesy - Mei Lin Meyers (NO-REPLY Group Show)
Snapshots from ‘Here Together’ zines: