Pendant
Stainless steel, powder coating, plastic, thread.
2020
The full title of this work is “Begin autopsy on white male, age sixty, who is arguably having a worse time in Texas than I am, though not by much” which is a quote from special agent Dana Scully, a character portrayed by Gillian Anderson on the 90s show “The X-Files”.
When I was little, I was obsessed with the show, with aliens and UFO-sightings, with American government conspiracies and, most of all, with special agent Dana Scully. I had her face on every sticker, every bookmark, every poster and even on a cover of my school book.
When I went into puberty, I became less passionate about UFOs and government conspiracies, however it was my childhood obsession with smart, sarcastic, strong and beautiful Dana Scully that helped me realize my sexuality, which wasn’t an easy thing in the early 2000-s Russia. I dedicated this pendant – shaped like an alien head, but containing a reference to agent Scully – to my teenage years, when a lot of puzzle pieces of my identity were hidden deep into various pop-culture obsessions.
Photos by: Arseniy Kuntsevich, Linette Kielinski
This piece was made for the exhibition “In-School Suspension” organized by JV-Collective in November 2020.