Long live the queer flesh – Touching the uncanny body with Lullaby by Brittany/Andrew Forrest

The queer body is a hot button issue right now. In the heart of the backlash, the validity of queer bodies is hotly debated for their divergence from the norm. Yet the elemental foundation of queer bodies is human flesh— flawed, aging, porous human flesh. Brittany/Andrew Forrest explores the unfamiliar familiarities of queer bodies. Brittany/Andrew uses two names and his/her pronouns, and this review will use his/her pronouns to acknowledge his/her identity and positionality. 

These creations made of silicone seen in Think about what you’ve done (Suppression) 2022, and Denial (Entwine) 2024 are accompanied by stream of conscious wall text rendered in graphite. These words twist and turn like intestines, while bringing no clarity. The faintness of the text forces you to draw nearer to the wall, to closer intimacy with his/her words, fitting for an intimate exhibition. The drawers of vulvas and nipples express the alienation of gender dysphoria, the distance and strangeness of gender performance embodied in the selection— what will he/she perform? What gender expression will he/she choose today? How can he/she exist in the world while so detached from the body he/she was born into? 

We have reference points within Canadian culture to contextualize this exhibition. Forrest’s silicone sculptures reference David Cronenberg’s body horror cinema, where flesh melts into skin, bones, joints, glands, organs and veins. Many of these sculptures are reminiscent of the “Plumbus” featured on late night animated comedy series Rick and Morty. Both of these tap into a horror over the indefinable and unseen within the human body. We cannot see the mutations of cancer, the formation of cysts and kidney stones, or the development of gender dysphoria within the mind. These dialectics are contained within our mysterious skin, only accessible through MRIs and ultrasounds, pried out through psychotherapy, out of reach, until now. Brittany/Andrew Forest commits a kind of psychic surgery and tugs out these functioning and malfunctioning organs from the depths of the human unknown. 

Within narrative alienation is both affection and repulsion for the queer body. These biomorphic organelles are no longer held within the secretive skin but displayed openly, echoing the widespread reveal of queerness within our own world. With so many people now identifying as some form of queer or non-binary, this exhibition is intended to speak to both the queer and the normative viewer. Brittany/Andrew Forrest’s art provides a powerful insight into the experience of gender dysphoria. The universal decay intrinsic to having flesh brings even the most normative viewers into close intimacy with the queer body.

There are some minor issues of clarity in exhibition design, with regards to the connecting of labels to works, but this doesn’t detract from the readability of the exhibition. Having a connection to the titles of his/her works does not further elucidate their meaning. Forrest creates a space for catharsis in his/her work, an experience of revulsion, confusion, fear, and ultimately acceptance for the mortified flesh. This is a place to navigate, but ultimately to find peace and common humanity with one another. 

Lullaby by Brittany/Andrew Forrest will be on exhibition at the Macintosh Gallery at Western University from August 6 to September 6, 2024. The closing reception will be held Friday, September 6th from 5-7 PM.