GOD MADE GRAPES SO WE COULD MAKE WINE

My experiments with growing biomaterial from bacterial cellulose have interesting implications when applied to gender. As a trans person, growing a living skin that I can mold or form as desired feels like playing God. Building human figures with hand-crafted electrical circuits within them gives them a sort of life. This play with gender alchemy is an act of spiritual autonomy, and allows meditations on the beauty, horror, and responsibility of self-creation.

The face of the figure in this piece is from a cast of a trans model. It is mounted to an array of hammered and wrapped copper wire circuitry, forming a cross in blue LEDs on the forehead. Pinched in tension above and pendulous and heavy below are stones from the house of my grandmother who loves me but will not call me by my name. Set in poured concrete around the base, typesetting letters spell out the phrase GOD MADE GRAPES SO WE COULD MAKE WINE. In the same way, God made me so I could make myself.