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.
Spread between Brooklyn, Toronto and Warsaw, transgender visual artist, curator and singer Tobaron Waxman (they/them) nurtures a multidisciplinary practice that connects performance to mutual aid and activism. Through documented vocal and body works and site-specific installations, Waxman, who was trained in Jewish liturgical music, unpacks the abstract laws and regulations imposed on the body by citizenship and residency. “My live art practice explores the concepts of language, gender, nation and embodiment, contextualizing the physical experiences of time as systems of inscription,” the artist says of her work. Waxman draws connections between the absurdity of residential legality restrictions and that of the gender binary, both of which are relevant for those of us who drift between the two.
Hyperallergic: What is the current orientation of your artistic practice?
Tobaron Waxman: For “gender diaspora“(2019-present) I’m waiting this week for a decision from the Polish government to decide if/how they’re going to give me a passport. This is the documentation of my process for applying for Polish citizenship as an ethnically trans person Polish Jew. The story exposes the ways in which the state determines the parameters of our bodies. I just presented some of the songs, video stills, monologues and booklet of “Gender Diasporist” at Disruption Network/Kunsthalle Bethanien at Berlin, in a symposium on data, sousveillance and artivists who confront systems of domination It was fantastic to see non-trans audiences connecting the dots, finding a coalition and learning strategies together.
I am currently working on my first album. It is a concept album of songs, liturgy, poems set to music, short monologues and field recordings; all about a formative period of years where I lived on the sly and undocumented while I was a seminary student in Hasidic New York. Singing in Yiddish is a decolonial aesthetic strategy, that is to say, as in “Gender Diasporist”, a refusal of nation-states, choosing to thrive between existing categories, in a queer trans present.
Since 2013, I have done the Intergenerational LGBT Artist Residency (ILGBTAR), as curatorial, relational/live art and socio-political praxis combined. ILGBTAR organized five interdisciplinary artists from across Canada to make site-specific sound portraits of places in queer history. In one person’s mind, a listener could be transported to every site, regardless of mobility issues, or low vision, or live somewhere where Queer information is prohibited. The recordings will live permanently on The ArQuives server, and a limited edition vinyl album will be released in 2024.
H: In what ways, if any, does your gender identity play a role in your experience as an artist?
TW: I’m much more interested in non-binary thinking and what transgender knowledge teaches us about power, liberation, and the sublime. This is inevitably what my current project “Gender Diasporist” emphasizes by creating new opportunities for coalition.
The role gender has played in my experience as an artist has changed over time. Professionally, this has often been a token experience, in which I am asked to be proof of the premise of a cisgender conservative – a chimera. When I started responding to BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) and enacting solidarity with Palestine in artwork informed by the trans experience, curators were pissed off saying, “But you’re supposed to do portraits, and porn…!” So… I will say this question sheds light on the development of the discourse, and when I was or was not in tune with the trends.
I write this as someone who sings psalms for the sick and dying, sings lullabies to the homeless, has talked more than one trans person out of suicide, mourned the death of my closest friends loved ones and myself survived violence, death threats and homelessness. I answer this in 2023 as someone who has been all the letters in the rainbow, lived longer than expected, and has become what I have been told is impossible for someone my gender presumed, several times. Gender has informed my political consciousness in various ways and, to ever-changing degrees, impacts the degrees of safety and access I can have. This is reflected in multiple projects and in my approach to curation as well as collaboration.
H: Which artists inspire your work today? What are your other sources of inspiration?
TW: Tania Bruguera; Shannon Bell; Barbara DeGenevieve; Grada Kilomba; Flo McGarrell; Rachel Rafe Neis; Galit Eilat; Kira O’Reilly; Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung; Leslie Freeman Taub; Dr. Dori Tunstall; Mirha-Soleil Ross; Julie Tolentino; Carmen Papalia; Helene Hazera. So much more. James Baldwin. These are just a few of the thinking artists whose creative work and work reminds me not to succumb to scarcity mode, to stay connected, and to ask better questions. Other constant sources of inspiration are support networks and urban agriculture projects.
Curators who truly embrace the intersections of my work in a dimensional way benefit from my endless and loyal solidarity. They include Juana Awad; Tatiana Bazzichelli; Travis Chamberlain; Stamatine Gregory; Ariel Goldberg; Tim Stüttgen; and Hans Tammen.
H: What are your hopes for the LGBTQIA+ community right now?
TW: I think the queer and trans future could be underpinned by a more intergenerational dialogue. In other words, someone younger in their life goes out to meet trans seniors in person, sends them a bag of groceries, or invites them over for coffee rather than expecting them to get in touch. line. In turn, the trans elder must be open and have the ability to enjoy a correspondence with a younger person – the grammar and vocabulary are different, both parties must commit to patience, forgiveness and to keep things spacious. From Keith Hennessy, I learned that it’s my job to learn from a new generation of artists and stay on top of what’s happening to them. Not letting the ego get in the way of this is an ongoing and worthwhile exercise. Let’s meet while we’re still alive. I need our people to know and respect each other.
I think it’s important both for the coalition movement and for a trans person’s mental health to know what trans people have done in liberation struggles outside of the United States. For those of us who are first or second generation, what is trans liberation in the countries where our parents come from? Don’t wait for someone to tell you: rather, be located; past, present and future. If this intimidates you, write to me and I’ll help you get started with your research or grant application.
I continue to relearn from bell hooks, from Audre Lorde, to acquire a power to share it while striving to dismantle it. The world is becoming increasingly transphobic from Uganda to Poland to Texas. It’s a tried-and-true method to separate and control – to limit the imagination and all the possibilities that variation represents. Those in LGBTQ+ communities who are privileged with calm and stability are bound to step up. I want trans people to not only live, but live longer.
