Eggshells

My short film, entitled, Eggshells, is a journey in which I navigate my complex emotions to a traumatic hate crime I experienced of being egged and yelled transphobic slurs at. While I experience much hate on a daily basis, I feel that it’s helpful and even necessary to truly process what happens, rather than letting in sit in the subconscious. How does this affect the perception of myself? My perception of others? Of the world?

The egg itself becomes a tool with many psychological and symbolic meanings within it. The power of reincarnation, birth, nature, hope while also pointing to the power it has to utterly humiliate and embarrass if used in a certain way. In my film, I utilize 12 distinct characters to navigate the incident while using the egg in a different context for each, Through performance, dance, and music, I am able to tumble through this exploration.

Referencing Jung’s concept of the archetype, the characters, which range from 70s housewife to alien to chicken, look into the queer collective consciousness, the imbedded identity of queer people. The sensibilities that we all share from the similar experiences we have no matter where in the world we reside. Our universal feeling of being othered.

While I act as each of the characters, there is common understanding between queer and trans people of characters as extensions of ourselves that allow us to explore our trapped selves. Through the use of makeup, clothes, and loose gender expression, I am able to provide a sense of play within the work. Each of the characters is based around my own personal understanding of myself in how I react and perceive the world around me. They deal with emotions beginning from sorrow, to internalized then externalized anger, to acceptance. Drawing on various eras`, tropes, or even mythical creatures, I create distinct fantastical characters that each deal with the egg in their own way.

The majority of the characters exist with a public space. By juxtaposing the outlandish characters into the harsher reality, they break out of the preconceived notion of pushing true queer expression into only hidden spaces and only at night. Standing out and being othered is inherent to my understanding of the queer experience which is made evident as these characters perform and in a way, are put in the spotlight of what would one would say as just an ordinary day. The audience is allowed to experience what comes with this. By using public spaces, there is an embrace of the absurdity of these performances while still speaking to the deeper subject matter.