Forma: Growing in Attunement

Abstract

Material culture has been a concept explored through the framework of the gender binary in the last decade which has led to a recent renewed interest for feminist scholars, art historians, and anthropologists writing and publishing documents about how intrinsic gender is to understanding the various practices such as fiber and ceramic. While this has allowed for a deeper understanding of making for several artists, it has created barriers for some, namely the gender queer community. This is not a critique of the research that has been done, but rather an expansion to include makers that do not fit into the gender binary since, without any additions, they are left with a new binary to understand and work with contextually, rather than just make. Over the past few years, as a gender-queer maker, I have been digesting various theoretical frameworks for making and forming them into my own which his realized in the body of work, Forma: Growing in Attunement. This body of work walks through the various aspects of material culture, historical significance, and gendered stereotypes all within the new context of Forma. This new take on Heidegger's Dasein has been paired with Jean Baudrillard and Jane Bennett. Forma is defined as the realm of consciousness wherein all things, even those considered traditionally inanimate, have separated themselves from function and have agency outside of performance. At its core, this body of work explores how to reclaim the idea of function as well as what makes up a sacred safe space from my perspective as a gender-queer individual. Ceramic, wood, and fabric materials start a conversation about the legacy of craft and gendered theoretical framework by using them to create a new syntax of making. Each piece is both smaller and larger than itself and intended to be viewed as both a microscopic organism and an entire world that a body can exist within. This framework necessitated a new syntax, a swapping of language which clarifies how previously gendered materials, processes, and spaces need to exist for the sake of inclusion and representation of the gender-queer community.