ON PIGGYBACKING, CARS
AND SQUARE TREES

project type - Site-Specific Video Installation / Film Stills
year - 2021

On Piggybacking, Cars and Square Trees is a site-specific installation that explores from a queer gaze the multiple ways in which generic architectural sites, i.e. the carwash, and technologies of movement, i.e. the car, play a role in contributing, sustaining or sometimes subverting the reproduction of socio-cultural values and gender patterns. From a gender studies perspective, the ritualistic process of cleaning and maintaining a car can be seen as a political performance that could be considered a “feminisation of masculinity”, opening a door to a new critical model of masculinity – a so-called ‘caring masculinity’ – which contributes to equalising gender roles and embraces the affective, relational, emotional and interdependent qualities of care.