Reclaim (GIF); Reclaim (Sculpture) (2023) / Amanda Kessaris
The work “Reclaim” (sculpture) consists of a metal, armor-like underwear set with hinges that allow the undergarments to open and close like ports to the naked female body. The feminine underwear, and the more masculine metal, work together to create a shield against rape and sexual assault culture. Furthermore, the work allows the wearer to reclaim the right to their own body, deciding when this protecting armor is on or off. Installed half open, the work invites the viewer to imagine themselves stepping into the sculpture’s negative space and wearing it as a shield.
The sculpture reappears in the complementing work “Reclaim” (GIF), depicting the armor-like undergarments being taken on and off an avatar of the artist, Amanda Kessaris. As the armor is being removed, it is unveiled that the avatar has no nipples or pubic hair. To the viewer, the avatar virtually does not have breasts or a vagina. Without nipples or a vagina, is her body naked? Without her ‘female’ body parts, can she become a sex object? Without anything being unveiled under her metal bra and underwear, the avatar escapes the male gaze and unwanted sexualization. Through the GIF and the sculpture, “Reclaim” transforms into a fantasy of what life would be like as an avatar woman without her ‘sexual’ and ‘sexualized’ body parts. As a digital avatar floating in nothingness, Kessaris finally feels the ecstasy of having bodily autonomy, something that has felt virtually unattainable in the real world.
Amanda Kessaris (DK/US) is a multidisciplinary artist who uses her pieces as outlets to investigate gender roles, identity, and her experience of being a girl and woman within different cultures and generations. Kessaris works interdisciplinarily in a physical and digital reality to “reclaim” and portray traditional feminine symbols and materials as motifs in a contemporary context and as strong feminist symbols. Growing up around Hollywood’s “look at me” culture but very close to her Danish egalitarian-oriented family has created a form of identity crisis, which appears in her works. The concept of identity being something that can be taken on and off, as well as the eternal conflict between her multiple selves, act as reappearing themes throughout her practice.
As she studies how her identities flow into one another, Kessaris experimentally investigates how materials have the potential to do the same. Her works examine the possibility of creating fluid boundaries between various artistic mediums. Doing this can allow a single work to be simultaneously classified as an independent installation, video, sculpture, photo, performance, and/or wearable piece. With the intention of creating works the viewer can become one with, Kessaris often works with unconventional but recognizable materials that people have a physical relationship with, such as undergarments or furniture. Doing so allows the viewer to interact ‘with’ and mentally place themselves in the negative space ‘of’ her pieces and understand their deeper intentions.