“Finding Home” by Boi Boy
On view: September 7th – September 30thOpening Reception: First Friday, September 7th, 6 pm – 10 pm
“Finding Home” explores how we as queer individuals seek and develop our chosen families and communities. A collaboration between members of the House of Alter: Boi Boy, Maura C (Hunk Stuff) and Chris Bender (Oh Christopher), “Finding Home” incorporates installation, performance and drag. With this piece we celebrate the concept of “play” which is lost as we are forced into a heteronormative lifestyle when we “grow up.”Inspired by the colloquialism “living the dream,” the installation creates a space that is one step away from reality. It is as an attempt to capture the brief moment when you wake up from a dream with one foot in the world and the other in your subconscious. The feeling of being blissfully unaware of what happened yesterday and what you have to do tomorrow. The moment that inspires self-transcendence and detachment from reality but will soon become a fleeting memory. “Finding Home” creates a form of escapism that helps us face the current overwhelming reality.Nightlife, drag shows, and gay bars often become community spaces for queer people. These places become temples to queerness where we come together to celebrate, bond, mourn, dance and create our own quasi-religious experiences. Within these spaces we develop our own language, ideals, fashion, pop culture, etc—much of which has been passed down through a long history of fearless queer people. To go to a drag show or to experience queer nightlife is to go to church. It is where we escape. To “live the dream” and to “play” is to “Find Home”.
Boi Boy (they/them) is a fiber, installation and performance artist from Kansas City, MO. Their work tends to address issues related to dissociation, idealizations, and identity, in a playfully oversaturated and over-stylized manner. They graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute Fiber Program in 2016. They were Charlotte Street Foundation studio resident from 2016 to 2018 and are currently a studio resident at the Drugstore after receiving the Gift Of Faith Award. Since graduating they have worked on a number of interactive events including, The Kemper Museum of Modern Art Gala, A pop up event at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, the Charlotte Street Foundation's 20th anniversary events and most recently the Sonorra Stage at Coachella .They are a 2017 - 2018 Rocket Grant and Meow Wolf DIY Found recipient in Collaboration with Bo Hubbard to open Alter: Art Space, an interdisciplinary and collaborative queer artist run space focusing on installation, interactive design and new media with the mission of “Passion over Prestige” to explore the social practice of Nightlife. Instagram - @boiboy2000 Maura C (They/He) is a nonbinary trans performer and poet who works under the titles “Hunk Stuff” and “Sad Cowboys”. In their life and performances they play with gender, alienation, mourning, sobriety and the absurdity of being. They hope one day to be a beetle. Instagram - @hunk.stuff Chris Bender (They/He) is a queer performer and maker. Performing under the name “Oh Christopher” they explore queer identity as a means of processing emotions and to explore personal concepts of love and intimacy. Instagram - @ohchristopher5