trips
2019
4:11
https://vimeo.com/388661730

For in-becoming queers in adolescence, moments of what José Esteban Muñoz describes as disidentification occur as sub-conscious or conscious tactics of survival. Between 1982 and 1987, American actress Shelley Duval spearheaded a childrens television program titled "Faerie Tale Theatre" which retold many classic fairytales and myths with famous actors and whimsical plays on dialogue. The sets were almost a failure but provided another dimension to the literary stories read in books. Villains threw shade, carried on, and had the flare, unbeknowst to me, of drag queens and kings in queer nightclubs.
"trips" is an ongoing video project exploring the ways in which the retelling and shaping of fairytales set up some of the conditions of possibility for my queer experimentation. From the Little Mermaid, Rapunzel, to Rumpel Skiltskin, these easily accessible documentations of theatrical adaptations provide the necessary material to edit, splice, weave, new constellations of identification, self-imagination, and queer futurity.

This video is in relation to on-going project titled “ fantasy footing: imagining the beautiful possibilities of what’s missing” which incorporates another videos, “mertoegasm” and a continuous sculptural investigation of bodily depiction, commencing with “miss toes”.

When we move our bodies, the trace is the footprint. What if that footprint was never whole to begin with? fantasy footing takes as its focal point that which is missing. Born with deformed feet, I’ve always considered the toes that are not there, or the connection of tissue to form webbing between the digits, as constant indicators or signs to that which can be imagined. fantasy footing is an on-going project, spanning multiple mediums, theories, and methodological approaches.