art · 2014
Closet Inside the Closet
The Great Exodus (graduation exhibition)
Part of The Great Exodus, my 2014 painting graduation exhibition. A 3-channel video installation across three connected rooms, about how identity — and the dress codes we pin to it — refuses to stay fixed.
3-channel video projection across three connected rooms · 2014
Queer people are marginalized in a society organized around cisgender, heterosexual norms — but discrimination also runs inside the queer community, minority against minority. I find that telling: that people who know what exclusion feels like can still pass it on. To me, discrimination usually starts with a preconception, and one of the most everyday preconceptions is how a person is expected to dress. As a bisexual, I have often felt different communities quietly expecting a particular look from me — and reading anyone who doesn’t match it as an outsider.
Three rooms, three closets
Closet Inside the Closet is a 2.2 × 2.5 m structure divided into three spaces — one read as heterosexual, one as homosexual, one as bisexual. The rooms are separated by doors, yet each opens in both directions, so you can walk straight through from one identity into another: every closet is connected to the rest.
One body, every look
The 3-channel video shows me wearing what each community treats as the “right” outfit — a skirt, long hair and makeup in the heterosexual room; a leather jacket, trousers and short hair in the homosexual room; a blended look in the bisexual room. In reality my own wardrobe isn’t sorted that cleanly; I mix all of it. Standing in a single white jumpsuit, I can be all three at once — which is the point: identity isn’t fixed, it’s fluid.
