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.
A pensive depth underlies the work of Tsohil Bhatia, a non-binary artist based in New York City — part of the territory once known as Lenapehoking, homeland of the Lenape, notes Bhatia. This attention to ancestral stories manifests in their performances and objects, which often illuminate the knowledge and unseen processes behind domestic and food work. The artist, who also describes herself as a “housewife”, works on a series of dried and rotten fruits and vegetables, among other works of art that allow time to act on an object or idea – transforming him beyond recognition, or perhaps revealing his true self. (Bhatia has an apple from last September, encased in glass, in their studio; “I just let it do its thing,” they say of the rot and organisms that have sprouted in the fruit.) In the interview below, Bhatia delves into concepts of endurance, loss and transforming the kitchen into an art studio.
Hyperallergic: What is the current orientation of your artistic practice?
Tsoil Bhatia: I come from a background in performance art and photography and my work is sometimes a representation of my current being and other times a study; a forensic vision of routines, my environment and my daily life.
I do work anticipating my mother’s death, like an anxious preparation for that moment. Thus, the manufacturing process is a waiting methodology and integrates time into my practice. My performance practice is also a healing practice that uses exposure therapy, endurance and meditation. In “The Duration of Daylight – III(2020), I counted my breath and made a mark for each inspiration from sunrise to sunset. The performance, which takes the form of 14 drawings, was a mourning ritual performed after the death of my grandmother.
Unlike a very personal work like this, in Fruits of domestic labor (2022-ongoing), I dried different fruits, vegetables and plant materials to preserve them forever. The drying process encompasses decomposition and rotting. Organic matter during the period of its decomposition becomes many things; it shrivels and shrinks, it welcomes another life, and sometimes it becomes nothing at all. This work is an archive of dried, decomposed and dead objects.
Over the past few years, housework and caregiving have become such an important part of my practice. I co-founded Red Flower Collective, a food research and community catering collective that organizes meals in New York City. The project intends to make household and kitchen work visible and to carry out care work that lies outside the cultural hegemony of capitalism. The research led to the expansion of the kitchen to become a laboratory and a studio. I often think about our food practices, ancestral knowledge, and the processes of cooking, and my work is currently guided by the study of performative and sculptural vignettes that occur in a domestic setting.
H: In what ways, if any, does your gender identity play a role in your experience as an artist?
VG: My first works were confronted with my body, its limits and its aspirations and were very influenced by my relationship with it. I made a few hundred self-portraits which form my way of thinking. I believe that today my body and its gender are more of a footnote to my practice. While I do most of my work about my experiences as a non-binary queer artist, I don’t assume an inherent knowledge that is revealed by this categorization. I believe that my gender identity plays out in the work in mysterious ways that I cannot fully identify.
H: Which artists inspire your work today? What are your other sources of inspiration?
VG: I’m very inspired by the work my friends do, and they all inspire me in different ways. My mind is a conglomeration of part of their personal history and mine. I learn so much from the women in my family and it is extremely important for me to recognize their work which has been made invisible for decades. I have been very inspired by the work of Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Rachel Youn, Tourmaline, Carlos Motta, Fadescha, Katie Hubbard, Gordon Hall, Wilfredo Prieto and Alexandre Estrela to name a few.
H: What are your hopes for the LGBTQIA+ community right now?
VG: To shamelessly ask for more for ourselves and our loved ones. Remembering our ancestors, remembering those we have lost, nurturing our youth, protecting those threatened by families, governments and lovers. Make space and build a culture that encourages care.
