Tristan Baia

My body of work this year is primarily concerned with the topic of queer medicalisation, and how the medical industrial complex causes harm to queer bodies, either directly or indirectly – as well as perpetuating and enabling societal perceptions of normative bodies through the power of the natural. I particularly draw on the concept of assigning gender at birth as a form of institutionalized socio-political violence, trauma and discrimination inflicted on queer bodies within the medical field, as well as violent, non-consensual “treatments” – chemical castration, forced intersex surgery, and conversion therapy – and denial of service by homophobic medical practitioners, or a disregard for gender or sexual identity during treatment. Engaging in a space of repetitive healing through the durational materiality and process of crochet in order to create a series of sculptural works, these bulbous, organic forms encourage a tactile approach to catharsis and healing from queer medical trauma through their materiality and plush tactility, and call on the viewer to consider bodies, and modes of being, outside of cisheteronormative ideals of the natural.

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