Somewhere, somehow, something is growing : an artistic exploration of internal organs, pink glitter, and queer sub-cultural experience : an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the postgraduate degree of Master of Fine Art at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract

I have a sculpture-based practice concerned with understanding and upholding contemporary queer identities. Through the exploration of 'bodies', narratives and intimacies, my work deconstructs (reconstructs) these things and their relationships to the societally enforced hierarchies that privilege some bodies, identities, and communities and abject others. This thesis is concerned with references and notions of present-day queer-ness. The social experiences of being alive and being LGBTQIA+ in the (economically, politically, and societally) unstable here-and-now. Through the making visible of my own personal narratives, connections, and experiences my aim is to critique homogenising technologies, such as; pervasive ideas of normalcy and otherness, and pay homage to ideas of queer-ness past. The art, protest, and politics that have had a significant impact on the creation (and development) of queer-ness as we understand it today.