A Kid Again
2012
Public Installation, Chicago Suburbs, IL,
Simon M.
A Kid Again started as a means to contest how public space is deemed heterosexual space by default; by adding my queer narrative to the public sphere, I wanted take up those physical spaces where I felt my identity was either a burden or simply erased. Using the past, I developed a sort of queer map of moments in the suburbs where I grew up.
When I distilled the 11 moments to their circumstances, I realized how misinformed and harmful my perceptions of acceptance, free will, and reality were as a child and adolescent. I had internalized homophobia to the point where I viewed my existence as an “other-sexual” as an inconvenience to “normal” people. This project attempts to start, in public, those dialogues that I never could.
So I printed the moments on signs, put them in the locations where they occurred, and expressed those things that I felt I was never supposed to.
After 5 hours (from 5 AM to 10 AM), there were 3 signs left standing. Many were taken within 2 hours of their installation.
Chicago, July 3rd, 2012
I saw some of this series in the new ChicagoIRL and it piqued my interest, and I’m happy to see more detail emerge on tumblr without any effort on my part.
(via shapeandcolour)
