Violet Bordin

statement:

When I was six years old, the coolest woman I ever met was a stripper in a confederate flag bikini. She watched me as a favor to my mother for, what was then, the greatest hour of my life. I had an undying admiration for a group of men that I had been raised around, and they were all now looking at her. First, they smiled at our odd coupling, then their eyes drifted to her breasts not totally covered by white nationalist napkins. I wanted what she had. And eventually, I got it.

If you were to wear a blindfold when you fucked me, would I still feel your gaze? Would you still undress me with your eyes and consume me with your imagination? 

My body is a landscape penetrated by watch towers, the guards pissing down onto the grass below leaving dead spots where nothing can grow. Where men yell down commands no one can hear and threaten to shoot lawbreakers. Their rules bind me- the shabari ropes of white supremacy. I have often found myself bending and breaking in accordance to the laws of visibility. Doing splits and spread eagles so I can be pleasing to their eye. 

I often get fucked, but I am always surveilled.   

My perfect stripper, prettier, shinier, somehow more white and less violent than I will ever be, made her living on being edible- constructing a facade that could be easily consumed under a man's gaze. I don't intend to belittle her. Part of me envies her ability to survive in spaces I cannot. I want to be her still- but I don't want to go down easy. Beautiful, but putrid, sour, and choking on the way down. I want men to gag and retch while they consume me.

My practice dissects these feelings. Through humor and discomfort, I relive the gaze and I attempt to murder my onlookers. I force intimacy and I punish those who participate.