While editing I realised that the peripheral actions almost spoke louder than the performances. So I did include them. The video is now not just a cutup of the performances but talks of the failure of filming the video, how the carp didn’t bite, how my relationality in my hometown is both enabling and cencoring me.
In some ways it feels like I chose this work, this practice in order to talk about my experience in an abstracted way. And i guess it makes sense, thats what objects of art usually do. The bread and the performance can do the speaking, in prophetic ways, ways in which some will understand and maybe others won’t.
I am quite conflicted about expanding the directness of my approach when I am on the countryside. That was part of the feedback and it immediately scared me. The proposal was to go out and talk to people I know there, ask them about how they perceived me growing up, what their idea of me was.
Now the thing is, I do not talk about my sexuality lightly, it is a topic that’s full of shame for me, at least in my hometown. To deep is the fear that I could rip open old wounds, start up a conversation again that might be better kept on the down-low.
Sometimes I get the feeling that I do not understand the rulebook of that space. How simple actions can be misinterpreted, like they are fed through an entirely different black box.
So talking about my experience more openly sounds like a lovely idea, from this safe distance I have mostly, but thinking it through it gets quite scary quite quickly.
I also learned within the process so far that I do not have to excavate and extract my deepest worries, fears and insecurities for this project to succeed.
I do not have to reveal my innermost world for this to hold meaning. I was going to do that for validating my project so far - on the track to explaining every symbol and metaphor through journaly entries, thoughts and feelings so personal I couldn’t really share them with any friend.
I learned that abstraction is key. Bread is the medium for the steamy soft and brittle feelings I am trying to convey. I can hold it in front of me and have people look at it, rather than into me. And to some it will feel like looking inside, and it will make sense. And to others it will make sense in different ways, ones I cannot foresee.
I state in the video that this might be a way of hiding behind my practice. I do sometimes feel it ridiculous the amount of shame and insecurity I still harbour around my queerness around my hometown (maybe even in a broader sense). But then again I want to remind myself that this is not linear, nor is it a feeling that has to be constant unrelated to my whereabouts. These spaces we exist in shape us always, and so they will impact how I feel about myself and that is not childish or weak, but maybe just fine.
I can use my freedom that I find in other spaces and internalise it, take it with me in parts. Even if I do not act on it in other more suppressive environments.
Maybe I do not have to talk about sexuality so openly around my hometown. Mabye thats somehting I can learn from the way it is regarded in my “city-life”, in my bubble that makes it seem almost redundant to even mention it - That maybe it needs no mentioning. I don’t owe anyone an explanation or revelation.
I can just talk about my relationships, like I would with any other relationships and that’s it? That would certainly be a more relaxed approach.
I like the dichotomy that is evident in the video - between the attempt at performance, the symbolic elements that are “in-world”, but on the other hand, the embracing of a failure at suspending the disbelief of being in that world.
I guess I cannot suspend my own disbelief. Of being in either one of the “worlds”. And probably this precise distincition is useless and arbitrary.
I had two people very close to me tell me that the video and project kind of hit a nerve when they saw the performance of me sitting on the rock, painting my face. And I kind of understand. All these symbold are fitting and it honestly dawned on me post-fact. What meaning this holds - painting myself the outsider, acting out of line intentionally, the puppet. But in recording the in-situ voiceover while editing I decidedly mentioned it to be “sterile and pretentious”. I think that is mostly because it holds inherent this shame I am running from, the fear of being too weird or soft or sincere. It might just be unbearably close to me, unbearably sincere.
So I want to embrace it more, to a degree that feels safe that is. Also maybe more effort will make it easier for me to stand behind it, to back it.
Back to the notion of dichotomy, of two worlds. If I find that this is how true I can be within my home environment, I like the idea of moving any wish to go deeper into a digital space. Of creating a prophetic, surreal digital environment where symbols play out the more courageous parts of my dreams that I cannot do myself just now.
Memory crept back into the project also. The photo I tried to recreate in the sink. The one where I am sitting in the sink filled with carp, my dad or maybe the cook who used to work for us taking them apart, we (my brother and I) used to bite through the swimming bladders. (they’d pop satisfyingly) I took all the steps to recreate it, made the carp from bread, got in the sink, all of it. Just to call my mom about the photo of me in the sink and her saying, ”that was your brother.”
Additionally he is just standing there with a cucumber? No grossly cut apart carp to be seen. So once more I am forced to believe my recounting, my subjective perception of the past and not only that but I have to trust others to believe me too (the scarier part).
Perceived memory plays a big part of our identity I would say.