Essing, Fawning, Gawping, Hocking, Isling, Jostling, Keening, Legging, Moping, Nodding, Ooling, Putzing, Querling

2023

carpet, existing architecture, polished stainless steel, mild steel, recycled pine, recycled maple, birch plywood, lauan, vinyl pleather, nylon, expanded polystyrene, epoxy resin, foam beads, zippers, milk paint, latex paint, polyurethane

9.25 x 17.25 x 41.5 ft

New City Arts, Charlottesville, VA

with thanks to many, especially Anna Hogg, Bill Bennett, Victoria Valdes, Trevor Kemp, Vibha Vijay, and Retta

Essing… is an installation that proposes a range of queer furniture and toys as grounds for public performance and play — use, misuse, misbehavior, misunderstanding, improvisation, cooperation, and more. The installation’s opening featured a series of performances by Retta as a child docent who irreverently taught and toured adult visitors through the installation and told knock-knock jokes at each stop. Essing… closed with a “reverse opening”, during which participants were invited to enter a contract to claim a piece from the installation. The contract requires that participants document use of the work monthly, suggest future furniture and toy designs, and enter a gift economy in which works from the installation can never be sold, only be exchanged for other objects.

several photos courtesy of Lindsey Leahy and Tori Cherry

performance series at opening:

contract signing at “reverse opening”: