Viva Vilar

      With a focus on sculpture and performance, my multidisciplinary practice challenges the oppressive nature of the binary structure of gender by resignifying materials and techniques historically attributed to masculinity. The use of steel as one of the fundamental materials of my body of work reveals my foundation as the daughter of a metalwork sculptor; who gave me the tools to make my very first art piece but also taught me that working with industrial materials wasn’t a “girls” job. By “Queering” this binary sense of materiality, my artwork confronts the very nature of how I inherited these techniques along with assigned gender expectations.

       As a way to expose the process of creation of an artwork, Performance came into my practice to bring back life to sculptures that, otherwise, did nothing after I was done making them. Allowing me to expand my practice beyond the notion of a static, “finished” sculpture, performance embodies a more intentional approach to present a narrative - where I’m able to use my body, fashion, audiovisual elements, and documentation as tools to construct the existence of a sculpture, physically and conceptually.

       Engaging with the legacy of gendered practices and materials - I’m invested in the possibility of the coexistence or deconstruction of the binary language that surrounds them. This echoes my own identity process as a trans individual - the recurrent themes in my performance pieces, such as the construction of the body, issues of visibility, comfort, and discomfort, come as a way to bring my own feelings about gender to a palpable and visual realm. Being able to contextualize my abilities to my own vision has made it possible for me to claim power within my queerness and my artistry.