{"id":17446,"date":"2024-07-03T14:22:14","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T18:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chra.bard.edu\/?p=17446"},"modified":"2024-07-15T13:20:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T17:20:06","slug":"etched-in-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/chra\/news\/etched-in-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Cassils Presents “Etched in Light” Co-Supported by CHRA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inspiring collaborations: March 31st is International Transgender Day of Visibility. This year in Washington DC, artist Cassils presented \u201cEtched in Light.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Performers and participants in ETCHED IN LIGHT<\/span><\/i> BY CASSILS, National Mall, Washington D.C., Trans Day of Visibility, March 31, 2024. Performance still. Photo by Ashley J. Mitchell.<\/span><\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Etched in Light is a participatory visual art and sonic performance led by Cassils in collaboration with the National Center for Transgender Equality<\/a> and over 140 trans and NB artists. Pushing back on the politics of visibility in a moment of heightened violence, collectively, we called upon the imagery and affective energies of lie-ins, die-ins, and the historic NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to claim space for our trans and gender expansive selves, transforming the National Mall into a site of beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n
The campaign served to center the performance in a larger context of the partnership with NCTE and<\/span> QEI<\/span><\/a>, while furthering Cassils’<\/a> engagement with questions of trans* visibility: exploring abstraction as a tactic of refusal from the enforced spectacularity of trans* bodies in a moment of heightened violence. During a moment of increased political erasure, Cassils creates an empowered representation of trans solidarity that intervenes in this politically charged and increasingly polarized battleground environment while simultaneously refusing the surveilling and voyeuristic gaze leveled at trans bodies.<\/span><\/p>\n
Cyanotype is an early form of cameraless photography that relies on fabric or paper coated in light-sensitive chemicals exposed to sunlight. Here, Cassils invited trans and queer participants to imprint their bodies on one of the largest cyanotypes during this participatory performance on the National Mall.<\/span><\/p>\n
Cassils told Hyperallergic<\/a>, \u201c[We are] trying to think of a formal language that speaks to the problematics of this idea of purely representing; thinking about how trans bodies are often seen under a voyeuristic or surveilled gaze\u2026The performance was really coming up with a visual language that denies that kind of invisibility.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n