|
|
Expecting
James Chantry
Expecting, 2020 GIF animation Courtesy of the artist |
James Chantry is an artist, researcher and socially engaged arts worker. James has exhibited internationally, predominantly working in drawing, animation, film, photography and installation. He is currently undertaking a PhD by practice in Fine Art at De Montfort University, Leicester and is Arts Development Manager at Charnwood Arts, Loughborough.
Expecting is part of a body of work exploring queer identity and the supernatural. Throughout folklore, literature and film there are often coded themes of queer reproduction and alternative communities: from the 18th century mock birth rituals in Molly Houses, with gender-transgressive male spirit mediums and their ectoplasmic manifestations, to male pregnancies in alien-dominated science fiction worlds. In this new work James references A True Story by Lucian of Samosata, a text written in the second century AD. It is thought to be the first work of science fiction. In the text, Lucian describes a community of men, living on the moon, who grow offspring from trees made of skin and also give birth through their thighs. During the Covid-19 lockdown James began to consider communities that are outside of the normal, on the fringes of society, and contemplated a utopian queer futurity that aligns with that of feminist futurists such as Shulamith Firestone. Alternate models of non-heteronormative community, reproduction and, in turn, work and labour revealed themselves through this ancient text. The artwork itself is a form of reproduction; the source image was from low quality ephemera - embryonic - from which a detailed drawing was formed. Animation and the GIF are representative of life and biological function. |