Commissioned by WalkingLab for hour three of You and I Are Water Earth Fire Air Of Life And Death – Water (Deshkan Ziibi).
SPIT HOLD is a single channel video work of a durational performative exchange. Starting with a mouthful of water, the artist and their partner pass the fluid back and forth between each other until only spit remains. This exchange becomes a process of transmutation through contact – water to saliva, our bodily boundaries between self and other dissolving. Exploring the ways in which queer and trans bodies can embody states of flux, SPIT HOLD challenges fixed notions of relationality and intimacy – here, they are both containers and contained; bodies a vessel for one anothers fluid, emotions, and remnants. SPIT HOLD investigates how we contain and transform one another, how queer and trans bodies can be both containers of desire and active participants in transmutation, and how queer kinship, like the body, is ever shifting – porous, fluid, in constant flux.
Endless thanks to Stephanie Springgay, WalkingLab, and Tess Visser. View the archived livestream of the event here.
