JESS SALDAÑA, “STRING” (2020)
Performance Studies Alum jess saldaña (M.A. '19) speaks on José Esteban Muñoz’s idea of a participatory hope for Hyperallergic’s Queer Art Workers series.
jess saldaña’s practice seeks to render nuances of intimacy and unearth the hidden potentials of an interdependent sociality; emphasizing fantasies of the ecstatic to redressing modes of grief and loss. Filmic mediums, poetry, performance, and music are combined using both documented and ephemeral forms. The work leans into the potency of the queer body as a means to destabilize institutional borders. There is a consideration for the indexical regarding presence, absence, and disappearance— as it relates to marginalization within the politicized space of the archive. The gaze of figurative representation is delicately considered, establishing either close contact or distance with the viewer. Content is co-made, whether it be reframed from existing archives, in relation to a specific site, and/or documenting performance. There is an interest in collaboration as a means of blurring singular authorship. The works offer an intertextual view of the body, the photograph, and the written/spoken word.
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