Specific Armour for protective solitude

 In their form, the sculptures are reminiscent of weird, armoured life forms. Life forms that exist outside the dual worldview. Creatures of a „queer-logic“. A logic that views nature not only in heteronormative terms such as „natural - unnatural“, „alive - not alive“ or „human - not human“. Nature exists in a continuous state and the notion of „natural“ only arises from human perspectives on what we call nature, not from „nature“ itself. Through the lens of queer ecology, all living things are seen as interconnected and interrelated, while children are born into a world that is already organized in gendered and     heterosexist ways. 

After birth, we go through a socialization process that is unfortunately mostly determined by heteronormative patterns. Toys are a big part of this, they can be seen as text that, among other things, conveys messages about gender and sexuality. From this point of view, it is obvious that toys play an important role in the formation of gender, sexuality, and identities. However, as mentioned above, today‘s toys generally convey only heteronormatively defined messages, and there are few gender-neutral or non-gender-specific toys. The toys most likely differ depending on whether the children are socialized as „girls“ or „boys“. In this sense, the toys that are often given to children are generally designed to reproduce socially created, heteronormative, gendered characteristics and stereotypes. The problem here is that providing children with different types of toys based on a constructed gender identity may cause them to develop different gendered characteristics. Furthermore, this might teaches children that some toys are for „girls“ and others for „boys“, which in turn can lead to children drawing clear symbolic boundaries between „male“ and „female“ already in their play. 

These works oppose this. By swallowing these normative toys, the sculptures give them a new context and make them the substance of a queer object - a queer logic. For example, the ubiquitous use of hair, even reminiscent of fur in its density, is a very clear allusion to body dysmorphia of gender-queer people, as well as a situatedness in pop culture and contemporary fashion. This situatedness can also be seen in the way the materials are sourced; in targeted missions these objects are hunted down  in second hand shops. These „transshipment points“ for used and consumed materials are not only an indispensable part of our capitalist society, but also a kind of railway station for all the objects that end up there. Some only have to wait for a few hours, maybe even minutes, before they get taken away, but others will never see the light of day again. Once found, the objects are brutally dismantled into their usable individual parts to be immediately processed further. They are melted, cast, sewn, broken, painted, bent and glued. This does not happen randomly, a meticulous selection has to be made to decide which elements give the sculpture what it needs. Thus the trainer fragments, which appear in almost all the works, are another reference to our over-styled world, in which such a pair of shoes can be a source of identity. 

Meanwhile, the armour elements, in the materiality of the surface, alludes, among other things, to an essay by philosopher Paul B. Preciado entitled ‚Who defends the queer child‘. This title struck me, and it was the initial inspiration for this series of works. Preciado says it is impossible for a child to politically rebel against adult discourse: ‚The child is always a body whose right to self-government is not recognised. Who defends the rights of the gay child? Of the intersex child? Of the trans child? The rights of the little boy who loves to wear pink? Of the little girl who dreams of kissing her best friend who happens to be female? The rights of the differently-abled child? The rights of the non-binary child? Who defends the rights of children to change gender if they want to? The rights of the child to free self-determination of gender and sexuality? Who defends the rights of the child to grow up in a world without sexual or  gender violence?‘

I wanted to create objects that try to do exactly this. They should defend. Not only children, but every queer body they can get a hold of. They are defenders and they are protectors. But of course not in a literal sense, they won‘t protect anyone from being harmed physically or psychologically, but the fact that these sculptures take objects up into themselves and turn them into something queer and comforting gives the viewer a new perspective on these objects, and through that some sort of protection from a patriarchal binary and heteronormative world.

 Armour is a ubiquitous part of queer people’s lives, it is more than just protection, it is often what makes it possible to maintain an identity in the first place. Clothes become armour, make-up becomes a helmet and high heels become steel toecaps. But this kind of „everyday armour“ is needed above all to feel alive and like a human being. Unfortunately, this armour is not able to offer the true protection that Preciado demands - more than that, it can even act as a target under certain circumstances. 
What happened to become the ‘modern armour elements’ in these objects is mostly sportswear gear. The reason for this material choice lays in their very gendered and uncomfortable nature. Sportswear embodies a certain vibe that is, and i cant help myself to find better words for it, tough. But why is this thoughness so strongly linked to masculinity and has such a patriarchal feel to it. As it is the case with the gendered toys that i mentioned above, these works take these uncomfortable things up into themselves and make them their own. They situate them in a queer context and use their rough qualities against themselves. This practice of appropriating objects into a queer logic and also ridicule them, is something that is totally empowering, I take the things that I get excluded from all the time and own their aesthetic for my own artistic purposes.

This effect is supported through the discrepancy between the hard, armoured- and the soft, hairy, fabric 
elements of the works. A discrepancy that is based on tension and aims to underline the ambivalent character of these objects. For the sculptures are indeed defenders, they are armour,  but not for combat. They are seemingly held together by longing, and the disparate nature of their surfaces is about enduring, embracing and highlighting many tensions. This surface, which is mostly made of found materials, carries histories of different times and places as well as a situatedness in contemporary pop culture. By incorporating the objects into new relationships without giving up their former voice, the situated material illustrates the multiplicity of contingent encounters, temporary partial connections and creates a seemingly living queer organism in the first place.