Taxonomy or Some Other Word for Feeling Trapped
2020
Video Art, 13m51s
Featured in the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art 2020 Student Showcase 


2020 artist statement:
As an artist, I am interested in sound in the visual arts. I am committed to creating works which use sound to transform space, highlight its relationship to community, and space’s state of becoming. I believe that sound has the ability to open people up to radical alternatives to the present. Thus, in my practice I seek to wield arts goals in line with the prank. Through discomfort or misunderstanding people are placed in positions where growth is possible. Taxonomy or Some Other Word for Feeling Trapped was my first attempt at using this methodology for my own growth. As a closeted trans woman, I had used graduate school as an excuse to put off examining and understanding my trans identity. I was scared and overwhelmed.

When COVID-19 came to the U.S. and I began self-quarantining, it became impossible to ignore my transness. Sitting with myself while sheltered-in-place I began documenting live performances that were further edited into this video artwork. Highlighting intimacy and discomfort, the work weaves a narrative about my emotional experience of gender questioning. Returning to the methodology, the space in this video is not the scene but the body. The internal and external space of my experience, it’s state of becoming, and through this work, the growth that became possible for me.


For screening information, please contact me at lorelei.d@proton.me