Post-Mortem: Queer Material Afterlives was a month-long art residency that aimed to challenge notions of waste and the disposable nature of design. Our team was Aggie Fielding, Areti Kotsoni, Cory Page, and Elsa Mäki. The project deconstructed GSD student models from various disciplines as a queer practice in margins, waste, and reuse. By de-composing, classifying, and piling these models, we studied waste as a source of material and making intelligence, and to highlight the potential of repurposing in creative practices.
The project was titled ‘post-mortem’ as a pun on both the unseen life after models are surrendered to bins, shelves, and the floor; and the technical term in theater practice, wherein a whole cast and crew gather after a show’s closing to digest the process and experience collectively. The project ultimately built an open catalog of objects and piles, re-presenting the year’s collective output and demonstrating queered material afterlives.
Work was completed in situ and on view in March-April 2023 at Kirkland Gallery, Cambridge.
