Link + Artist Statement

 Vimeo



    This video is about my personal experiences with coming to terms with being bisexual over growing up in a household that, while not overtly hostile, operated under the assumption that I was straight and thus ended up saying things that in reality were callous and hurtful and certainly wouldn’t have been said to me if I spoke up about it. Instead, it feels like a confessional; listing off things that made me uncomfortable and working through them by putting them “out there” and on video. Giving them voice. My account begins when I was around 11-12 years old and works up from there, to 18-19.
    The visual I chose to accompany this is a video of me drawing. I wanted to pair something comforting and familiar to me with something that still makes me uncomfortable and is potentially embarrassing for me to talk about in public. I wanted this video to be therapeutic for me, and I made it a performance by doing an off-the-cuff illustration that I drew as I listened to this audio on loop in the background. My drawing forms into a cohesive structure at around the same time my story and sexuality does, getting more refined and taking on precise characteristics. The drawing process ended, much like the conversation with my mother in the audio, unfinished, and left for another time. I wanted the visual part of the video the parallel the audio even when the visuals were not directly related to the audio by syncing them up in both tone and breaks. Starting out unsure and unsteady in both camerawork and narrative, and ending on a note that is much the same on both fronts.