Under Construction (Blocking)

Performance Stills

(Photographed by Chantelle Hope)

2017

As a means of survival many minorities adapt to their surroundings and carve spaces for themselves when there is none. A particularly queer mode of being is to accept unfortunate realities and transmute negative experiences through building subverted realities.

This series of images exhibits the performative illustration of “constructed realities” by way of white building blocks. By way of the performer, these blocks are arranged into new architectural formations, creating new sets, props, and environments from which to inhabit, before deconstructing and reconstructing anew. This serves to illustrate the ritual act of continually rebuilding your environment from the ground up in an adaptable and malleable fashion.

This performative approach to existence is adopted from a deep rooted queer understanding of society as construction and social theatre. This follows in the tradition of “Realness” as per the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning, in where “realness” is not simply physically existing, but rather performatively existing. “To be able to blend”.

This act, which can be seen in and of itself as a queer ritualism of identity and environmental malleability, is an illustration of the queer use of adaptability in order to engage in larger societal rituals.