Genderbender is an ongoing performance series (2019–2024) that follows the shifting landscape of my gender identity and its public perception. Through these works, I trace the bodily and emotional thresholds between conformity and self-recognition — from the early attempts to “pass” within a binary framework to the eventual reclamation of my body as a site of truth and resistance.
Each iteration unfolds as a live negotiation between the performer and the audience: a shared witnessing of transformation, exposure, and repair. The series merges personal history with collective reflection, challenging the gaze that seeks to define gender as a stable category.
Rooted in queer and eco-activist practice, Genderbender embraces vulnerability as a political tool — a way to dismantle social expectations, but also to reveal the quiet, enduring resilience of becoming.
Rooted in queer and eco-activist practice, Genderbender embraces vulnerability as a political tool — a way to dismantle social expectations, but also to reveal the quiet, enduring resilience of becoming.
Genderbender III (2024, Pāvilosta)
The third and most recent version of Genderbender was performed in Pāvilosta, by the sea — a symbolic place of transition and cleansing. By then, my documents, my pronouns, and my inner sense of self were aligned. The performance no longer aimed to convince or explain. It became a ritual of affirmation.
I invited people to form a circle and hold a rope — a living boundary, a community of witnesses. I brought a bucket of seawater and poured it over my body, again and again, each time wiping myself with a pair of men’s boxer shorts. The gesture echoed the previous versions yet transformed their meaning: what once symbolized constraint now became a tool of renewal.
In the end, I undressed completely and stood still — exposed not as a spectacle, but as a presence.
The sea salt, the air, and the gaze of others intertwined in a moment of calm truth.
The sea salt, the air, and the gaze of others intertwined in a moment of calm truth.
Genderbender III marked the closure of one journey and the beginning of another: a reconciliation between body and identity, between activism and intimacy.
