More specifically within the sphere of queerness, I have begun experimenting with the idea that hair and makeup are tools of self-expression and markers of both individual and collective identity. Often, my lack of hair means people assume I don’t appreciate the value of it in relation to identity however, I feel my ‘absence of hair’ is intrinsically linked to my gender expression and identity. Additionally, I see my head as a canvas and often sport different dyed styles. I wanted to level up this idea of my head being a canvas and did a performance piece titled: ‘2mins 58secs’ where I allowed people to spend two minutes and fifty-eight seconds doing whatever they wanted to me using the tools I provided: a pair of hair clippers, hair dye and makeup remover. This was an exercise which required me putting my own comfortability to the test both in terms of handing over control to an unpredictable audience as well as dressing in a way which I usually would not. I have found, within an art/ studio setting I am more willing to push my limits of comfortable self-expression than within a day-to-day context- I want to fully exploit this throughout my FMP and push my boundaries further than I have done up until this point. Another way in which I want to try and expand beyond my typical boundaries is by exploring gender identity in more depth. Many of my artist references to date are people who expand or reject the gender binary within their work and life generally but I also need to do more reading of gender theory from both psychological and sociological perspectives to develop my knowledge beyond a purely individual and anecdotal standpoint.  

 

Along with being a nice metaphor for how I want to entangle multiple connected ideas in my fmp, spiderwebs are another area of interest due to their instrumental role in communication amongst spiders. The process of weaving is one which I use often so the ways in which spiders construct their highly complex and delicate webs is also a point of reference that I want to explore further. I have begun experimenting with hair materially and want to develop this by dying and altering the hair before manipulating it as a fibre. I want to start treating the hair I am using for my work in the same way I treat the hair on my head.