During the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic, I kept a graphic diary titled Dandelion Roots. The format was simple: in a single black‐and‐white line drawing from a square of paper I would document something encountered (during periods of lockdown, this would normally be on my daily allotted walk). Overlaid on the same page, I would arrange words in an attempt to articulate whatever was on my mind: reflections on gender, identity, ecology, and relationality. The tight format forced me to distill what were often complex internal dialogues. Though posted online and via social media, the work was not conceived as a set of definitive statements but as a way of sharing my thinking process. By documenting seemingly inconsequential everyday encounters alongside critical reflection, I attempted to work the material and the discursive together. Here I was not necessarily seeking coherence but rather contextualizing my thinking process within a...
Dandelion Roots: A Trans Ecology of COVID‐19 Vulnerabilities
Sage Brice combines research in cultural geography with a lively contemporary art practice. She is currently assistant professor of human geography and a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at Durham University. Her research interrogates the politics of nature, particularly in relation to queer and trans ecologies of identity. She has an affinity for watery and fluid landscapes, and recent work explores problems of identity and ecology in the Huleh wetlands, in northern Israel‐Palestine. Her current project, Everyday Practices of Trans‐Individuality: Viral Ecologies of Isolation and Exposure during the COVID‐19 Pandemic, brings an ecological perspective to studying everyday practices of gender under pandemic conditions, asking how they reflect bigger social questions about the “nature” of identity and subjectivity. It uses creative and collaborative methods, working with a group of trans and nonbinary people to develop a graphic narrative output. Her artwork incorporates drawing, sculpture, and socially engaged, participatory art practices, and she has exhibited widely, including at the Royal West of England Academy and Pratt Manhattan Gallery.
Sage Brice; Dandelion Roots: A Trans Ecology of COVID‐19 Vulnerabilities. TSQ 1 November 2024; 11 (4): 667–670. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-11421142
Download citation file:
Advertisement