Looking Out at the View

Refinery ArtSpace, Whakatū Nelson. 20 January – 22 February 2020.

So, I say to the psychiatrist, sometimes I feel I'm a mouse.

And the psychiatrist asks, what do you mean when you say that you feel you're a mouse?

Doesn't everyone know what you mean when you say that you feel like a mouse? You know, quiet like a mouse, I say.

The way the psychiatrist is looking at me — I'm sure he's considering a diagnosis of clinical lycanthropy, a rare condition involving the delusion that one can transform into an animal. I prefer therianthropy, which is the purely mythological ability of humans to metamorphose into other animals.

I laugh and say, not a mouse. What I mean is that sometimes I find it difficult to speak.

Looking Out at the View is a rule-based series about my propensity to adopt the identity of famous artists, objects and creatures. It is built from rearranged found text, my biography, and photographs taken of me as a child. The work includes the photographer (who writes) and the poet (who photographs). It is a photo album of sorts: portraits and self-portraits in an eternal present.