I write the way I speak.
Only when I read, you listen.

I write poetry the way I write complaint.
I write poetry the way I write text messages.
I write poetry the way I write resignation letters.
I write poetry the way I write applications.
I write poetry the way I write protest songs.

I never understood what poetry was anyway.





Staged at the opening reception of the artist’s MFA graduation show, Who am I, when you can’t see me? (2023) is a public, performative reading that reflects on their past two years of study and concurrent changes in their transitioning body. The script runs through language from disparate kinds of writing –from grating administrative correspondence to diaristic revelations and lucid poetry– all authored by the artist during their tenure as a Masters student in the Art Gender Nature Institute in Basel, Switzerland. During a penultimate moment in the performance, the artist pauses to reach into their pants pockets, turning them inside out, and scattering “teeth” across the floor. Throughout the evening, one could hear the sound of these “teeth” crunching and cracking under the weight of people walking around the gallery. A few become wedged in cracks between poured concrete slabs or in joints where the floor meets the surrounding walls.


[video documentation on request]