Tali Lehr-Sacks

VIRTUAL TOUR

ARTIST CATALOGUE

Queer Matter(s)

My artistic practice navigates the intersections of queer theory, urban studies, phenomenology, and post-humanism, focusing on the recontextualisation and transformation of discarded and undervalued urban objects – which are often pushed to the peripheries of the city – into queer matter, that matters once again.

Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2006) book, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, and Abraham Akkerman’s (2006) essay, Femininity and Masculinity in City-Form, I explore how spaces, objects, materials and bodies are encoded and shaped by historical and cultural forces influenced by societal expectations, especially those rooted in heteronormativity. My work unfolds through critical reflections on these theoretical frameworks and my personal experiences as a queer, non-binary, transmasculine artist navigating urban spaces and feelings of alienation.

By combining seemingly paradoxical materials such as rusted metal found objects and soft fibre in its various forms, I challenge the taxonomical and Cartesian modes of separation between subject and object, matter and meaning, and masculinity and femininity. Both the materials (found objects and fibre in its various forms) and the processes of care (walking, looking, collecting, unlearning, relating, world-building, transforming, rebirthing) within my practice, involves a dynamic fusion of both feminine and masculine moments of embodiment.

By curating my work into an installation, I create a queer heterotopia in the gallery space, inviting viewers to question and disrupt normative systems of power, identity, and urbanization, offering alternative possibilities for relationality and existence that are centred around processes of care, instead of marginalisation.