WEBVTT 00:00:01.580 --> 00:00:03.880 [MACHINE HUMMING SOUNDS] 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:18.880 I kind of enjoy being in that stage of perpetual confusion, 00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:24.360 not being completely at place with one category 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:27.980 and being completely comfortable in that flux. 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:42.260 ["Jes Fan In Flux"] 00:00:50.260 --> 00:00:53.360 [Urban Glass, Brooklyn] 00:00:56.520 --> 00:00:57.700 [Jes Fan, artist] 00:00:57.700 --> 00:01:00.740 While I was in school in the RISD glass program, 00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:05.480 learning how this matter transformed itself from one state into another 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:10.400 really entranced me into thinking, "How I can I apply it to other mediums?" 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:15.840 --You have to move so quick because the material is alive. 00:01:17.900 --> 00:01:19.960 --It was liquid, now it's almost plastic 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:24.360 -- and then it'll become more like what we think of what glass is. 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:28.660 My work comes from two experiences. 00:01:29.620 --> 00:01:30.340 --Blow. 00:01:32.020 --> 00:01:39.580 One is moving from Hong Kong, where I was considered as a majority. 00:01:39.580 --> 00:01:43.420 And then moving to the U.S. where I was suddenly considered as a minority. 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:47.760 And another one is growing up being queer. 00:01:49.640 --> 00:01:51.620 Being queer in Hong Kong is very hard. 00:01:52.440 --> 00:01:55.320 You can't find yourself represented. 00:01:55.660 --> 00:01:58.900 When you can't see yourself in the mirror, you think you're a ghost. 00:02:01.520 --> 00:02:04.820 I'm really curious as to how substances get imbued 00:02:04.820 --> 00:02:08.810 with these really political identity categories, 00:02:08.810 --> 00:02:14.180 and how there is also constantly a biological affiliation to race. 00:02:15.420 --> 00:02:21.120 So I started making sculptures extending to biological mediums-- 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:25.580 things that are imbued with identity categories-- 00:02:25.580 --> 00:02:27.000 specifically testosterone, 00:02:27.420 --> 00:02:28.880 and also estrogen, 00:02:28.880 --> 00:02:30.400 but also melanin. 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:35.239 In one of the projects I did called "Mother is a Women," 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:37.720 I asked my mom for her urine samples. 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:43.820 There is nothing weirder than holding your mom's excretions in your hand 00:02:43.820 --> 00:02:46.000 trying to cross U.S. customs. 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:46.920 [LAUGHS] 00:02:47.720 --> 00:02:48.920 It's so weird. 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:54.740 Then I worked with a lab and extracted estrogen out of the sample, 00:02:54.740 --> 00:02:56.520 and created a beauty cream out of it. 00:02:57.080 --> 00:02:59.699 [VIDEO VOICE OVER] --The purest estrogen from my mother's urine... 00:02:59.699 --> 00:03:05.180 [FAN] In this age where substances that sustain identity categories 00:03:05.180 --> 00:03:08.719 can be bought, and sold, and made, and commissioned, 00:03:08.720 --> 00:03:12.840 how am I, as a vessel of these identities, exist? 00:03:16.660 --> 00:03:19.880 [Chinatown] 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:26.860 I started playing with these substances when a lot of friends around me started transitioning. 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:31.620 And also I started transitioning. 00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:40.099 Using testosterone to masculinize my body 00:03:40.100 --> 00:03:45.580 is in some way similar to using a chisel to carve out a surface. 00:03:47.080 --> 00:03:49.040 In a way, you're sculpting your body. 00:03:49.040 --> 00:03:51.579 And in a way, I'm also like that glass, 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:53.380 in this liquid transformation, 00:03:53.380 --> 00:03:55.240 or perpetually in flux. 00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:03.300 It's almost like watching Discovery Channel. 00:04:06.500 --> 00:04:07.900 You learn codes 00:04:07.900 --> 00:04:11.360 that you weren't brought up leaning 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:14.640 and you have to unlearn a lot. 00:04:16.200 --> 00:04:18.180 It's not always comfortable. 00:04:30.580 --> 00:04:33.880 [Recess, Brooklyn] 00:04:40.760 --> 00:04:44.480 Right now, I'm working on a series of sculptures called "Systems." 00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:50.960 They are all this lattice pattern 00:04:50.960 --> 00:04:53.840 with these glass globules hanging on them. 00:04:56.540 --> 00:05:01.620 These glass globules in turn become containers for these biological substances. 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:08.860 I pour silicone inside the vessel. 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:11.940 Then I inject melanin, 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:13.940 testosterone, 00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:15.580 and also estrogen, 00:05:16.060 --> 00:05:16.960 and also fat. 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:23.780 Playing with these substances, 00:05:23.780 --> 00:05:27.960 I want to see it detached from the body and existing on its own. 00:05:28.420 --> 00:05:30.500 Once they're removed from the body, 00:05:30.500 --> 00:05:34.000 the sight of identification, like, "What are they?" 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:53.840 It's really interesting how animate these materials are, 00:05:54.420 --> 00:05:57.440 not behaving in a way that you would expect it to. 00:05:59.060 --> 00:06:02.400 There's a material expansion that wants to push the shells. 00:06:03.280 --> 00:06:05.280 And sometimes it just implodes. 00:06:09.960 --> 00:06:12.000 Holding the melanin in my hands, 00:06:12.009 --> 00:06:14.060 or holding the hormones in my hands-- 00:06:14.060 --> 00:06:16.460 such contested political substance-- 00:06:16.460 --> 00:06:18.300 there's some absurdity in it. 00:06:21.140 --> 00:06:24.700 How banal are these little flecks of powders? 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:30.040 This is ultimately the most absurd. 00:06:33.260 --> 00:06:38.080 Maybe it is triggering the similar experiences of being racialized, 00:06:38.080 --> 00:06:39.620 or being gendered. 00:06:41.280 --> 00:06:44.320 It's just the disposition that you're constantly placed in-- 00:06:45.020 --> 00:06:47.080 a constant act of othering. 00:06:48.960 --> 00:06:53.480 But, how can we be so absolutely certain that the binary can satisfy us?