Cassils
Artist’s Quote
We are in this heightened moment of trans visibility. But without systemic change, it puts the trans body at risk. I am a white, middle-class trans person. I don’t represent the most stigmatized trans people. This is one reason why I trouble visibility.
Luminary’s Quote
I do not want the female gender that has been assigned to me at birth. Neither do I want the male gender that transsexual medicine can furnish and the State will award me if I behave the right way. I don’t want any of it. – Paul Preciado
Preciado, Paul. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in The Pharmacopornographic Era. New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2008.
Bio
Cassils is a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils’s art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment.