Protection Wall, 2019
Buy Your Freedom, 2020
Untitled, 2019, Modeled by Mingdong Sun
My Soldier, 2019
Artist Statement
I see objects and bodies as agents of ideas. I use text, material, and the body as critical tools to raise questions about design norms, normativity and the manner in which we interact with objects. How do our object-related behaviors affect us? What does queer design look like? How do queered objects operate or should they operate at all?
I start my process by looking at everyday objects and researching their design history. Then I start playing, by manipulating color, shape, weight and function. I am impacting the essence and expectations of objects that carry both an everyday banal and a loaded gendered symbolism.
Fabric and Garments have a direct correlation to and impact on the body. I use the pattern in my process as a means to undermine the consumer norms. Gendered dressing has a design history, from the size of pockets to material choices and the method of buttoning, is performative, genders both the object and the wearer, and is widely accepted as usual, as fact, as normal.
I also use the body as a raw material. Present or absent, I challenge the ideal body model and its relation to garment in order to question the dominant power dynamics between individuals. As an Israeli queer woman my body suits and does not suit the world simultaneously. I am intentionally choosing to be critical through objects and I believe that it is my responsibility to be aware of political issues that are part of my life; in the same way mundane objects are also political bodies.
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