Notes on Camping is a performance in which I will be using camping equipment to transform my body in an exploration of gender. I will be dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and hiking boots, and I will be using a tent, sleeping bag, camping chair, tarpaulins, rope, and other assorted camping gear to transform my body by wearing, draping, wrapping, stretching and otherwise interacting with them to change the shape of my body, restrict my range of motion, or create extensions of my body. The actions that I will perform will not be predetermined, but will be responses to the way each object transforms my body, and the effect those transformations have on me, so that so that each action triggers the next in a constant feedback loop. The process of creating the work is all about fluidity.
I am interested in in-between-ness — in liminalities, transitions and transformations. Coming to performance from a media arts background, I feel that my practice is itself in a constant state of flux. My work covers a wide range of forms, using many diferent techniques, and can therefore be difficult to pin down. I am much more interested in exploring ideas and following a concept through from start to finish and seeing where it leads me, rather than being committed to any given style or medium.
There are, nevertheless, themes which keep coming up in my work. Gender and sexuality are frequent concerns, and I often try to challenge those perceived binaries and cross those borders. I have also become increasingly more interested in process than product. I like the idea that art exists in the act of performing artistic activity itself, rather than in any object that may be produced as an outcome.
Image credit: Antti Ahonen
Co-presenters
