Performance (with video documentation)
Chance, play, randomness, embodiment, performance, decisions
April 2022

How can I incorporate randomness and play into my decision-making?

As a human, one of my strengths and weaknesses has been a desire to do everything, everywhere, all at once. Having entered a thesis program with no specific focus, and in the midst of a period of mental health unwellness at the time I was to put forward a thesis proposal, I chose to narrow my topics through a process of creating a handmade pinwheel with all of the main topics of my art practice, to throw in some touches of humour and some opportunities for audience interaction; then — while my cohort in the MFA program and the incoming program director, Craig Leonard, were at a social gathering at my house — I performed the thesis wheel. 

Spinning the wheel three times (three is one of my favourite numbers. I love a rule of threes in comedy, am inspired by the power of a triangle, and am probably influenced by the Holy Trinity that was a regular aspect of my Catholic upbringing), I landed on the words ‘embodiment’, ‘performance’, and ‘queerness’. These formed the initial path for my research, and ultimately have ended up being the core facets of my thesis work (the first two more explicitly, the final embedded into everything that I do).