A Garden Under The Earth

Queer sexuality is strange.

It gestates enveloped in shame and fear that is inextricably braided with deep wants and desires. The psychological push and pull of such a contradiction results in a dynamic sexuality that is delicious and frightening all at once. We delight in the unorthodoxy and seeming degeneracy of our passions: we’ve been told they’re incorrect but yet, we want it. We need it.

With “A Garden Under The Earth” I aim to explore these conflicting and fascinating emotional dynamics. I hope to understand this distinctly homosexual instinct to challenge the existing paradigm; and how that can counterintuitively be a source of subversive pride; provide a path to the reclamation of our bodies and identities; and set the stage for a rebellious self-rebirth.

Fairie mythologies are the perfect vehicle to explore these themes: in researching folkloric fairie beliefs, I came to find striking parallels between the way these mischievous, often dangerous spirits were perceived and the fears that surround non-normative sexual identities to this day. The fae ceremonies from these old tales also bear surprising resemblances to modern day queer, erotic rituals, which often occur in liminal spaces, hidden away from the venomous eyes of those that may not understand and available only to those that know where to find these underworlds.

I perceive queerness as a challenge to convention, a crossing of seemingly rigid borders. Myth, fantasy, and folklore inspire this worldview: in those stories, characters obscure distinctions between male and female, human and spirit, floral and faunal. They traverse between realms and identities, showing how fixed boundaries can be made permeable. In my work, queerness is depicted as a difficult but transformative, magical ritual. Through it, I aim to unravel the emotional complexity that arises from being othered and sublimate it into visceral, sensual fantasy.