Jes Fan In Flux | Art21 "New York Close Up"

[MACHINE HUMMING SOUNDS]

I kind of enjoy being in that stage
of perpetual confusion,

not being completely at place
with one category

and being completely comfortable in that flux.

["Jes Fan In Flux"]

[Urban Glass, Brooklyn]

[Jes Fan, artist]

While I was in school
in the RISD glass program,

learning how this matter transformed itself
from one state into another

really entranced me into thinking,
"How I can I apply it to other mediums?"

--You have to move so quick
because the material is alive.

--It was liquid, now it's almost plastic

-- and then it'll become more like
what we think of what glass is.

My work comes from two experiences.

--Blow.

One is moving from Hong Kong,
where I was considered as a majority.

And then moving to the U.S. where
I was suddenly considered as a minority.

And another one is
growing up being queer.

Being queer in Hong Kong is very hard.

You can't find yourself represented.

When you can't see yourself in the mirror,
you think you're a ghost.

I'm really curious as to how
substances get imbued

with these really political identity categories,

and how there is also constantly
a biological affiliation to race.

So I started making sculptures
extending to biological mediums--

things that are imbued
with identity categories--

specifically testosterone,

and also estrogen,

but also melanin.

In one of the projects I did
called "Mother is a Women,"

I asked my mom for her urine samples.

There is nothing weirder than holding
your mom's excretions in your hand

trying to cross U.S. customs.

[LAUGHS]

It's so weird.

Then I worked with a lab
and extracted estrogen out of the sample,

and created a beauty cream out of it.

[VIDEO VOICE OVER]
--The purest estrogen from my mother's urine...

[FAN] In this age where substances
that sustain identity categories

can be bought, and sold,
and made, and commissioned,

how am I, as a vessel, these identities exist?

[Chinatown]

I started playing with these substances
when a lot of friends around me started transitioning.

And also I started transitioning.

Using testosterone to masculinize my body

is in some way similar to
using a chisel to carve out a surface.

In a way, you're sculpting your body.

And in a way, I'm also like that glass,

in this liquid transformation,

or perpetually in flux.

It's almost like watching Discovery Channel.

You learn codes

that you weren't brought up leaning

and you have to unlearn a lot.

It's not always comfortable.

[Recess, Brooklyn]

Right now, I'm working on a series
of sculptures called "Systems."

They are all this lattice pattern

with these glass globules hanging on them.

These glass globules in turn become
containers for these biological substances.

I pour silicone inside the vessel.

Then I inject melanin,

testosterone,

and also estrogen,

and also fat.

Playing with these substances,

I want to see it detached from the body
and existing on its own.

Once they're removed from the body,

the sight of identification,
like, "What are they?"

It's really interesting how animate
these materials are,

not behaving in a way
that you would expect it to.

There's a material expansion
that wants to push the shells.

And sometimes it just implodes.

Holding the melanin in my hands,

or holding the hormones in my hands--

such contested political substance--

there's some absurdity in it.

How banal are these little flecks of powders?

This is ultimately the most absurd.

Maybe it is triggering the similar
experiences of being racialized,

or being gendered.

It's just the disposition
that you're constantly placed in--

a constant act of othering.

But, how can we be so absolutely certain
that the binary can satisfy us?