Closeness is commonly understood as emotional connection, which has traditionally been represented through corporeal bonds. Throughout history, however, separated groups of people have found ways to connect beyond the body, exemplifying acts of allyship. Archive explores how closeness can exist between people separated by social hierarchies and considers the ways in which intimacy is embodied in physical forms beyond the corporeal.
A forged passport, a scrapbook photo, a cardboard protest sign, a condom, all objects that exist as individual points in a network of proximity that understands intimacy as transcending the body. The work reimagines allyship as a practice and not a title, shifting the subversive power away from individual actors to the act itself. In researching a variety of periods in history with extreme divisions based on sexuality, gender, race, and other human characteristics, I discovered acts of allyship rejecting social and political control. Archive focuses on documentation created through these acts and allows the viewer to contemplate both what allyship is and how it is represented.
The ritual act of metal-point drawing represents my own rumination on these concepts. Copying in itself is a forgery, creating an object that places the original documents in a new state of physical permanence. The rendered documents trace a human connection preserved in artifact—a distinct physical embodiment of intimacy. The act of drawing, in turn, commemorates and continues the conversation begun by contributions to a common good.