This article is part of Hyperallergic‘s Pride Month Seriesfeaturing an interview with a different emerging or mid-career transgender or non-binary artist each weekday throughout June.
In recent years, Los Angeles-based artist Miller Robinson, a two-spirited, transgender maverick avansahiichva who uses him/her pronouns, worked with a meticulously crafted costume to look and move like salmon skin. “Costume No. 5 (Áama, salmon)” (2020, 2022) is a latex rubber sheath made of silicone, graphite, and Pearl Ex powdered pigment. The outfit references the artist’s Karuk and Yurok heritage, growing up in a small town in the Northern California. In the 2022 performance video”Nípahootih kuuk Tanivaana (Áama) (Back to Myself (Salmon))“, Robinson stands on the shores of the Pacific Northwest wearing the salmon suit and slowly begins to peel off his skin, an act that evokes broader ideas surrounding personal identity – namely, the concept that our multi-faceted natures are layered into one body.Now Robinson uses a wide-ranging practice involving mediums ranging from tattoo and drawing to sculpture and installation to reflect on the people, places and things that bring him comfort.
Hyperallergic: What is the current orientation of your artistic practice?
Miller Robinson: I thought a lot about care systems in my studio and the themes of love, family, and home (and the lack thereof), and all of its unstable, non-linear forms resurfaced a lot. I’ve done a lot of objects geared towards rest, comfort and safety – things that look like pillows or blankets or jackets or architecture or pictures and materials that remind me of happy times, soft, intimate and strange shared with humans and the earth: hummingbirds, soft gradients like that of Californian sunsets, my injectable hormones, iridescence like that of butterfly wings, abalone, fish skin, soap bubbles, makeup, drag queens and the milky way.
I’ve really needed to hold myself back lately it’s a very dark time with the amount of anti trans legislation and the current state of the climate crisis amongst other ongoing violence and trauma that lives under capitalism and the colonial project of the United States. I find solace in the earth, in poetry, and in world-building, and I’m a quirky, detailed Virgo, so it’s been a lot of zooming in and out; in a sense, focus itself is the real focus right now.
H: In what ways, if any, does your gender identity play a role in your experience as an artist?
M: My art is a relationship and I inform it as much as it informs me. It looks like (un)learning; it’s an unresolved process, and it’s part of how I understand the world around me. I’m an artist and I also have a very specific gender experience – those aspects of myself are woven together. Whether I want to disclose which aspects and how I do so is quite another thing. He is still there but the work is multidimensional. I use my physical body a lot in my work and I tell stories from a very specific position in the world being two-spirited and transgendered. My work allows me to connect safely and deeply to this in whatever way makes the most sense to me.
My Karuk gender identity — avansahiichva – literally cannot be translated into this oppressive colonial gender binary regime, and I think the biggest way my gender identity comes across in my art is through its states of (it)readability. I’m a broad genre and have always been a non-confirmer, so my art is a place where I can continually find myself in the midst of the deep loneliness I feel.
H: Which artists inspire your work today? What are your other sources of inspiration?
M: During the most connected versions of myself, I find inspiration in everything around me – the land, language and linguistics, my ancestry, my different cultures, romance, sex, daily conversations , daily chores, the “garbage” I find on the floor, the common and seemingly annoying beam of light coming in through the window. I identify a lot with materials and non-verbal beings as well – lots of trees and birds lately and gender-affirming processes, objects and materials such as prosthetics, makeup and aids. ‘expression. When it comes to human relationships, THERE ARE MANY. Virtually everyone in my life is an artist who inspires me, some don’t even consider themselves artists. I still do. There are so many amazing trans, queer, two-spirit, and Indigenous artists that I watch regularly, as well as disabled and neurodivergent artists. To be honest, I feel immense gratitude and feel so privileged to know and connect with so many artists on a regular basis, and I’m someone who feels changed by everyone I meet. Some are dear to me, all of whom are friends, collaborators, mentors and teachers in various capacities: Creighton Baxter, GeoVanna Gonzalez, Edua Restrepo, Jasmine Nyende, Kira Xonorika, Coyote Park, Page Person, Jeffrey Gibson, Catching On Thieves, Lyn Risling, Julian Lang, Saif Azzuz. I’ve also been watching a lot of historical work by Ana Mendieta, Noah Purifoy, Genesis P-Orridge, and Forrest Bess lately.
H: What are your hopes for the LGBTQIA+ community right now?
M: Safety and security are of the utmost importance, and finding ways to rest in this genocidal, extractive, fractured and unstable time. To all my 2SLGBTQIA+ loved ones: Be true to yourself, and it’s so important to find your own tools to make sense of this world and your experience. Continue to hold each other, our ancestors, and the stories we come from close while prioritizing trans people and people with diverse gender experiences. Cis people really need to show up for us more right now because it impacts us all. I hope allies and cis will take action and make real change to help protect the most vulnerable in our community. Elected officials who support trans and human rights and things on that scale, like ICWA protection for indigenous families, are so critical to making sure tribal sovereignty is not further threatened, but so is the same goes for supporting marginalized communities through direct action – mutual aid really keeps the trans community alive. Supporting things like fundraisers for gender-affirming care and survival, climate justice initiatives like land defense and land reparations for Black and Indigenous people, and supporting our youth; all of these things are super interconnected and deserve attention and support.
