Artist Aryn Zev 

When you are thinking about a new project how much do your ideas around gender and your identity with (or without) gender in particular, fit in with the process?  

This answer would be very different if you asked me a year ago. At the time I photographed “Box” or “Inversion,” gender was one of the primary motivations—although I think my work raises more questions about gender assumptions instead of operating as a statement of my ideas.  I was also obsessed for a while with the idea of naturalness—there is still this myth going around about natural bodies and natural sexuality. Some trans and queer discourse has argued for the naturalness of trans experience or queer sexuality, and there are definitely examples in nature of sex changes, variations in gender roles, and non-hetero sexuality. I’m very skeptical about human naturalness, though, and think humans are too artificially cultured and medically enhanced to claim naturalness of any kind. I fully embrace the artificiality of human experience including my own gender expression and sexuality. My work now has evolved from those concerns and is currently more focused on the ability to reinvent the self, creating vehicles for consciousness and total environments rather than issues of gender in particular.

What would you say to those who are new to the art world? Specifically, what would you impart about being an artist in todays society who are trans / genderqueer / gender-variant identified? 

 I hate giving advice, seriously. There are so many ways to approach the question. I guess one suggestion would be to explore whether you are a trans/gq/gv artist whose work deals with these issues or whether you want to make work about other things because I don’t think every trans/gq/gv person needs to make work about their identity or have that as a focus. And don’t let anyone pigeonhole you into it. I strongly encourage avoiding narratives of oppression and repression in the mold of the evolutionarily straggling mass media. Instead, create your own unexplored models of cutthroat genius.   

Please tell us what your plans are for the future for your work. 

As I mentioned before, I’ve become interested in the potential for recreating the self and the environment in total, not just an identity shift within a singular person.  If creating new names, new careers, new life conditions can be considered art, then that is my main project—I am constructing multiple identities and operating under those conditions to obtain experiences.  I am also working on a number of collaborations, performing in several films by Jake Davidson and videos with Ingrid Staats, and participating in occasional live events with Shadow Lover. I have tentative plans to collaborate with Juan Bethancurt on some performances, photos, or videos utilizing his vast collection of sadistic domestic objects in the near future.  

Bio: Aryn Zev is a digital media and performance artist based in Brooklyn, New York.

Find Aryn at this website: arynzev.com