how do I inhabit what I inherit?: embodying the queer archive

For me, queer is both an adjective and a verb. As an adjective, queer refers to my non-binary gender identity, sexual orientation, and worldview. While as a verb, queer suggests disruptive, transitory, or cathartic practices within my work. Queer archival practice does not steer away from the intimate or vulnerable but is unapologetically personal. The archival strategies at the heart of my process constitute a certain reverence and care for these things, whether through photographic practices, breaking, reconstructing, or collecting.

Transgender, asserts Susan Stryker, “need not refer to one particular identity or way of being embodied” (2, Steinbock). This definition honours and embraces the notion of change at the heart of my work. All of the work within this thesis explores or celebrates change, as a means to connect with and generate trans aesthetics. “Trans ontologies are process-oriented, rather than object-oriented” (12, Steinbock). My work utilizes video, photography, and photographic processes to explore the cathartic, disruptive and transitory through inherited momentos/keepsakes.