ALTAR PIECES + RITUAL VESSELS

2017

Install shot: Skin Rituals, Blindside ARI, 2017. Photograph by Nick James Archer.

Mapping A New Way (detail), 2017. Embroidery and needle-felted wool on linen, stoneware beads, rock salt.

Install shot: Skin Rituals, Blindside ARI, 2017. Photograph by Nick James Archer.

SKIN RITUALS
24 January – 10 February 2018
Blindside, Melbourne

Skin Rituals seeks to create a bodily space in which queerness and religious ritual can co-exist.

In this work, the skin surface – embodied through linen and clay, as well as physical performance – is understood to hold accumulated layers of experience and identity. Through piercing, scrubbing and imprinting these surfaces, they are deliberately re-inscribed with new meanings. Acts of ‘wounding’ and ‘caring’ become ambiguous gestures, and old scars are reclaimed and redefined.

At a time when the discussion of religion, spirituality and queerness – especially around issues such as marriage equality and Safe Schools – is a tumultuous narrative of opposition and backlash, this body of work provides a gentle space for queering religion, and suggests new ways of being and understanding.