RIBS - 2021

RIBS - is an installation performance. This piece features an 8 ft x 3ft freezer curtain, distressed as though frozen. The performance is a project upon the freezer curtain, and through the back and against the wall a blown up blurry version exists, because of the curtain’s transparent nature. The video features the artist juxtaposed against two racks of ribs, hung in a large basin with plastic curtains draped. The artist and the ribs are the same, meat…strung up and swinging. Both entities exist in the plane of processed flesh, swinging and abused. The accompanying sound is otherworldly, the sound of slapping feet and chains clanking resonates against an ethereal and tinny backdrop. the cries of the subject can be heard faintly and are blurred by the overwhelming emotion experienced, much like the sound of your own ears when recovering from blunt force trauma.

This piece is about gender dysmorphia/dysphoria. The notion of passing as a consumable such as meat. Bodies are often susceptible to the same levels of scrutiny and processing. In the US the FDA is responsible for approving certain meats for consumption, they get a mark of acceptable if they are good enough. The same is true in my experience as a transgender person, once announced, my body is under severe scrutiny. I say that I am trans, and people begin to inspect me, looking for signs of my trans-ness. Do I appear to pass? In what part of the binary am I aiming to pass for? Do I receive my mark of approval, does your gaze detect the flaws in my presentation, or the fallacy of my flesh?

The choice of meat is purposeful, according to the bible, eve was created from the rib of adam. So inherently and religiously ribs are both male and female, and exist in both spectrums. As well, there is research that relates the genetic relation of pigs to humans, we are very close. Pigs have a lot of feelings, they are smart, they feel pain profusely and violently.