In this project I will undergo Jungian psychoanalysis within a performative and relational framework. I will delve deeply inside the role of my "Master Gardener" domme persona, substituting plant-inspired topping sessions for the dream-work typically used as source material for psychoanalysis. This work will be collaborative between myself, scene bottoms and a psychoanalyst who agrees to attend scenes and unpack the symbols and fantasy elements of this dramaturgical praxis. In response to these sessions I will complete a series of large-scale, leather-tooled sculptural works as well as a published curriculum detailing this speculative therapeutic protocol.
This exploration aims to unearth the pathologies around my resistance to commodifying art, the psycho-social instinct to dominate others for monetary gain, and the collective projection of ecofetishism as a surrogate for climate anxiety. Drawing on the Jungian archetype of the “Wounded Healer”, this undertaking examines the artifice of superiority required by professional dominants contrasted with the egalitarian vulnerability integral to successful individuation within psychoanalytic therapy. The carving, etching, and molding of bovine hide in the leather sculptures thus echo the 'wound' of this dominant archetype.
This new work will be anchored in building a garden shed in my backyard, on the site of a recent wildfire. This shed will serve as a studio, session space and psychoanalytic office for the work I am developing. Public activations and performances will occur at this site as will a work-in-progress outdoor installation surrounding the structure. The shed ties in to other shelter specific works I have created in the past including a "Mobile Monastery" where I lived in an RV in the lifestyle of an ascetic monk and “The Church of gorgeousTaps and The Reality Show”, a series of secular church services I created inside a shed in Brooklyn and Malmo. The site of shelter and precarity of home space is a theme I wish to revisit in this work and tie to the broader precarity of our Earth home as life on this shifting planet becomes ever more unpredictable.