anoid (Connor Milton)

This project explores the power queer space and community gives to queer people. The song ‘Immaterial’ by the late and legendary SOPHIE is where to project started, I then continued to explore the ideas and effects of queer space through Michel Foucault’s theory of heterotopias. Foucault’s theory names sites like the ship, the garden, the cemetery, and the mirror as heterotopias. In 2009 Angela Jones extended Foucault’s theory to include queer space. I was thinking about how I feel in queer space and why it’s so important to me; I concluded that it’s because queer space is where I feel immaterial. Feeling immaterial for me is feeling gender euphoria, being a non-binary trans person, feeling euphoric about my gender and about my body isn’t a common occurrence. So, for me, I feel immaterial in queer heterotopia’s, which is why I took inspiration from the sites Foucault mentions in his theory to develop silhouette, print design, textile manipulation and embellishments. Particularly looking at spaceships, the garden (through floral motif) and the mirror. This makes each garment its own heterotopia, in the hopes I and others who wear my clothes feel gender euphoria while wearing them.