02 May Conor Baird
Residency Programme: May 2016
The penetrated male
“The poet must remain open to all sensations in order to be a poet at all, yet it is this very state of openness that most threatens to dissolve his masculine subjectivity. The impenetrability of masculinity must be overcome, or broken down, if poetry is ever to occur, making the male poet an inherently ambiguous figure within patriarchal systems of thought.”
Conor explores through his body the emotions that the hegemonic imaginary can produce in people like him, who don’t assume an asignated and fixed identity which depends on something as random as the sex you born with.
The masculinity often becomes a corset difficult to wear. The “man” have somatized by patrirchy
An attitude and an image of impenetrable. But the body, regardless of gender, is a structure full of holes, and these holes are doors to allow access to life. Through them comes the knowledge, essential for subsistence and many pleasures.
From the hearing holes to the pores, each hole allows a wealth of experience that the idea of masculinity has skewed imposed.
In his work there has been a particular focus on the body – it’s vulnerability, drives and dependence. Conor has been exhaustively attentive to post-coital embodiment, the authenticity of one’s feelings and the further authenticity of that representation by the artist. His work aims to interfere with a daily life dissecting one’s behaviour and thinking, taking into account larger perceptions of tacit relationships and queer ecology. Online and strange interactions have become a process of exploring risk, revelation and reward.
